


shorts and drabbles

by arahir



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, One Shot Collection, check the chapter index for descriptions, there's truly too much in here to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2018-12-15 21:11:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 42,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11814264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arahir/pseuds/arahir
Summary: Sheith prompts, requests, and other one-shots.27. keith gets a ponytail. it's... super effective.“No. His face is too—you know.” Shiro motions to his his face, making a point between his fingers and thumb. His own chin has always been more square than whatever Keith’s is. Beautiful, probably. There’s not really a better word for it.Hunk squints at him. “He looks like a piece of fruit.”





	1. pidge pov sheith reunion (fluff + angst)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome!! Click the chapter index or full page index for an idea of the content of each chapter. Most are around 1,000 words long, most are humor, some are angst and pwp and that's marked as well! If you have requests, you can ask on tumblr or in a comment. Most of these are in response to requests.
> 
> You can also follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir) for fic that I post there exclusively. It usually makes its way to ao3 in time, but that's where I post these days.
> 
> Thank you for clicking and I hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Anonymous said](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/164116787210/hello-i-had-a-thought-i-havent-seen-around-the): Hello! I had a thought I haven't seen around the sheith fandom but what if, in the pre-kerberus days, Keith was friends with Matt (and dating Shiro) and Pidge heard all about Keith and Shiro from Matt that when she joined the garrison she expected to find Keith there and get his help with her investigation but he was gone and there goes one of the few people that knew her brother that she could bond with and who would have felt that loss too

It turns out they all know Keith, or know _of_ him, the same way they know of Shiro—he’s infamous.

But Pidge doesn’t figure that out until later, after they tear a trail across the desert on the back of a hoverbike that’s straining under their combined weight while she holds on to Shiro like her life depends on it. It does, because if she loses Shiro she loses her chance—she loses _Matt_ and her Dad and everything she’s been searching for.

That’s the first clue. She’s not the only one that’s been searching.

The black haired boy driving them over cliffs like he’s born to it has one eye on Shiro the whole time, like he’s ready to pull up in a dead stop and grab him if Pidge’s grip slips an inch. She holds tight, and considers him. He drives like fighter pilot flies, and no one missed the Garrison med techs knocked out cold, or the look in his eyes when he shouldered Shiro’s weight like it was something precious–no one missed the _explosions_ he set off.

Whoever he is, he’s in as deep as she is.

Keith. That’s what Lance called him. The name doesn’t ring a bell, not until they’re standing around the beat up couch in the beat up shack Keith must call home, watching him brush the white bangs away from Shiro’s face, tracing the scar over the bridge of his nose with calloused, desert-scarred fingers. It’s intimate—too intimate, and that’s what finally makes it click.

 _Shiro’s ace pilot._ That’s what Matt called him, just to get under Shiro’s skin. Even after they got serious. She remembers dinners with her family and Shiro, Matt pushing that button over and over again, but the there was always a little flash of pride under Shiro’s embarrassed blush.

Pidge remembers, because she searched for him—for Shiro’s pilot.

If there was anyone else not buying the _pilot error_ line, if there was anyone that could help her, it would be him, she figured. But by the time she got to the Garrison, he was long gone, and she’d never pieced that together with Lance’s promotion and the cadet everyone knew like a cautionary tale.

Now that she can see him in the flesh and connect all the dots, now that she has a name and a face to pair with Matt’s teasing and Shiro’s little despite-himself smile, she gets it. Living with that every day, with _pilot error_ running off everyone’s lips, being beat into everyone’s heads by the instructors ad nauseam–she gets it. It drove her nuts in a week, and she wasn’t even at the Garrison. There was a time when she blamed him for running, for not being there to help her find and get back they’d both lost, but–

Shiro’s eyes twitch and blink. Keith’s breath catches and he puts a hand to the side of Shiro’s face, tilting him so their eyes will meet. It’s familiar and fond.

“Hey,” he whispers.

Shiro’s still blinking off whatever they drugged him with, but when he sees Keith he has one moment of wide-eyed disbelief before he’s pressing into Keith’s space, and—

She grabs Hunk and Lance by the sleeves, pulling them away with her. “Come on.” She jerks her head to the side of the room that will give them the most privacy, because this isn’t a moment that needs to be shared. Part of her wants to ask about her family now, move between them, get _answers_ , but she understands.

She’ll get her moment. This one is theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to request something over on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/)!


	2. sheith share dog tags (angst)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [pilindiel](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/164691535060/tell-me-about-shiro-with-dog-tags-please-since-i) said: Tell me about Shiro with dog tags please

Two days into captivity, they take his dog tags.

It was an oversight, he thought, that they let him keep them at all—a lucky one. The line of the ball chain stands out under the black body suit they tossed him in the cell with. It becomes a compulsion to run his fingers over the raised cloth, over the plates of metal lying against his chest, body-warm and solid.

The metallic tang of ozone permeates every corner of the ship, along with the cold. The Holts deal with their dread by trying to figure out what the Galra want from them, endless speculating that makes Shiro’s head pound. He presses against against the tags until he can feel the indents they leave in his skin. He has their order memorized, has for months now, and he knows exactly what name he’s stamping across his sternum.

It’s invaluable. Of all the things he brought with him to Kerberos, it’s the one thing he can’t imagine letting go of, which is why it’s so unbelievable that it’s the one thing he has left.

But the Galra, he learns, overlook nothing.

They pull him out of the cell without warning, half-drag him down a series of hallways he tries to memorize as they pass. He doesn’t resist, but the dread is overwhelming, and he has to fight the urge to fist a hand in the cloth over his chest, hold onto the chain like a lifeline.

To keep him safe. That’s what the tag is for, he reminds himself, like a child’s mantra. That’s what Keith told him, when he set the chain back over Shiro’s head. It was against regulation, and sentimental in ways they weren’t, but it was also the only sign that the Kerberos mission was hitting him harder than he let on, so he let it pass without comment.

It seems like an oversight now—so much seems like a oversight now. The list of things he should have done and said is growing by the minute.

“You’re to fight in the arena” the Galra they set him in front of says with a joyless smile.  “We have high hopes for you.”

Of all the scenarios the Holts had come up with, of all the possibilities, that was the most far-fetched—but it explains why they’ve singled him out.

 _To keep you safe._ Keith’s tag is presence against his chest, feeling far warmer and far heavier than it possibly can be.

It’s inevitable, he realizes. They’re going to kill him one way or the other, and the only thing they want out of him before that is blood. He takes a deep breath, stands military-straight, and shakes his head. “No.”

The Galra motions to the room behind Shiro.

They have him on the floor, blinking away stars before he realizes what’s happening. He fights, hard—it takes three of them, one with his full weight heavy on Shiro’s back to hold him down and unzip the black fabric far enough to grab the chain from around his neck. It leaves a line of pain against his throat where it breaks.

One of them hands it to the tall Galra, and he twines it around his claws, holding the tags up to the ambient half-light, speculative. “Well. It seems there _is_ something you’ll fight for, if not your own life.”

Shiro glares up at him from the floor, struggling against the weight on his back and arms.

“ _No_ —“

Shiro sees the exact moment he realizes what’s written on the tags, because he smiles again, and this time it’s real. “Two names?”

“Give it back, please.” Begging is easy; begging is free. Dignity is nothing for the name stamped on the chip of metal the Galra is turning between his fingers.

But they don’t want his dignity. That’s not what this is about. The Galra dangles it in front of his eyes like Shiro’s a starving animal and it’s red meat.

“Win your fight, and it’s yours.”

It’s the barest motivation, but it’s everything he has.

He wins. He wins Matt’s fight, and then they turn him around and march him right back into the arena, and he wins his own. It’s a slog and a blur and by the end of it he’s sore and bleeding, shaking with exhaustion, but the Galra are pleased.

They never give back the tags.

It’s hard to pick out the worst part. The loss of the Holts, or the walk from the arena to the cell and back, seeing the thousands and thousands of cells honeycombed one on top of the other, or maybe the stories his cellmates tell of the Galra, and the dawning realization that Earth has been spared only by distance and disinterest.

Are they interested now?

That’s the worst part. They have a name they know Shiro will fight for, a name Shiro will kill for. He tears himself apart over days and weeks marked by the irregular schedule of meals and fights. Win or lose—what will keep the Galra farthest from Earth and the name on that tag?

It’s a moot point, in the end.

The Galra come again to take him away, but it’s too soon after his last fight and they’re dressed in uniforms he’s never seen before. Gloves, long coats instead of armor, masks over their mouths. The one at the head of the pack is pale and pointed like the others aren’t; he looks at Shiro with something that might be pity.

Shiro knows as soon as he sees the upright table, the restraints, the overhead light—this is where it stops. He’s never going to make it off that table, let alone off this ship. They’re never going to give the tags back, and he’s never goin to see Earth again.

He’s never going to see Keith again.

The kick he aims at the ankle of the Galra closest to him hits true and hard, with a nauseating crack. He shakes free and runs for the door, but he only makes it a few steps from the room before they’re on him.

“Careful. Don’t damage him,” the pale one says as they grab his arms and bow him to the cold floor. The Galra kneels in front of Shiro’s bent form and reaches into the folds of his jacket, pulling out the beaded chain. Longing bores a hole in the pit of his stomach at the sight of it. This close, he can almost read them where they’re cradled in the Galra’s clawed hand.

“We’ve been studying your language for some time now. Am I saying this right? Keith?” He rolls the name in his mouth. The pronunciation is spot on, and it sends a spike of terror through him, hearing that name here. The Galra blinks at him. “Is that correct?”

Shiro doesn’t look at him—can’t.

“It would take us a day, I think, to find him.”

That’s his worst fear, manifest, and it sends another shudder of fear through him, despite the illogic of it. Why—why would they want Keith? Why do they want _him_? But those questions come later, after his hair goes white and his arm becomes something alien in the most literal sense.

In that moment, there’s only terror.

The Galra sees it and leans in close, whispering. “If you want to protect him? Survive this.”

He survives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to request something over on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/)!


	3. sheith shared dog tags 2 (angst + sap)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Anonymous said](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/165097296765/omg-your-last-fic-about-shiros-dogtags): OMG your last fic about shiros dogtags!! did he ever get it back omg i need to know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Podfic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13171161) of this chapter is available courtesy of the lovely Rhea!!

“Why do you still have your dog tags, man?” Lance asks, an hour into their hike.

Keith grabs them without glancing down and shoves the chain back in his shirt. Their cool weight in the desert heat is so familiar that he’d forgotten they were there; they aren’t for the eyes of three strangers. Lance huffs and rolls his eyes, but Keith doesn’t owe him an answer.

Ahead of them, Shiro tenses and half turns his head. Neither of them have brought that up yet—have brought _anything_ up yet. They haven’t had a chance to, and what would he say?

Here, take these, since they kept you so safe the first time?

A year into his mourning, his perception of the chain around his neck has twisted in on itself twice over. Too many afternoons spent lying on the floor of the cabin, shirtless, waiting out of the hottest hours of the day, trying not to think about the cold metal around his neck. The tags always felt unnaturally cool against the bare heat of his skin.

 _Cold like space?_ he let himself wonder once, and never again.

They didn’t find bodies at Kerberos. Pilot error; a mistake so profound it obliterated the crew wholesale, and not a scrap left for the rescue mission to take back.

It makes sense now. He understands, _now_ , but for a year he had nothing but the tags and the quiet, and the hours spent lying there in the heat, pulling the tags along the chain on a loop until it threatened to wear a line in his neck. It’s hard to come back from that, hard to think past the hollow in the pit of his stomach.

Shiro’s wide shoulders are right ahead, sweat glistening on the back of his neck under the sun—he’s real. Keith’s felt that stubble of hair under his fingers a hundred times. He could reach out and touch it, prove that Shiro is right there, but he doesn’t.

Not for days and weeks and half a galaxy’s distance. At first they don’t get the chance, and then it’s a pattern he can’t shake.

It’s guilt, he realizes.

Shiro survived everything, fought his way out, and came back to him. And Keith... what? Ran away? Hung a ghost around his neck and let it lead him to the edge of something hopeless?

So he hides in his room and pulls the dog tags out of his shirt, like he never left the desert. Like Shiro is still four point six billion miles distant and not two doors down from his.

The hard edges of metal between his fingers isn’t comforting; not anymore. He remembers laying the chains out on the bed, side by side, restringing the tags one apiece. It was ridiculous, and Shiro tolerated it, because Shiro always tolerated him. Every after-hours ride into the desert, every evening spent holed up in Shiro’s single bunk room, monopolizing his time and space. Every night that Shiro let him stay, making room for Keith in his bed and under his skin. It was selfish from the start, and the dog tags were the least of it.

The knock at his door shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is. He knows it’s Shiro before it slides open.

Alive and breathing and changed, but still perfect—Shiro is a perpetual wonder. Something behind Keith’s ribs twists when their eyes meet, but then Shiro zeroes in on the chain and tags he has threaded between his fingers, and he inhales. It’s an involuntary sound that Keith can’t distinguish from shock or annoyance, or something in between.

Is it embarrassing, to still be wearing them? He doesn’t know where they stand anymore, if Shiro still wants him at all, or if their time at he Garrison is part and parcel to everything else he wants to forget.

Shiro gives a soft, “Hey,” and half-smiles, eyes glued to Keith’s hand. He motions to his own neck with a hand—the new one, black fingers and dull metal—right to where the chain used to hang. “Sorry. I lost mine.”

It’s bizarrely apologetic, and now that Shiro is there in the quiet and it’s just Keith, there’s no mask in place. He looks exhausted. His eyes are downcast, and there are new lines at their inside corners. The pink of the new scar makes him look young, like it’s a band-aid over the bridge of his nose and he’s some kid that ran too fast and tripped.

Keith... is an idiot.

He’s up and off the bed, the chain off his neck before he knows what he’s going to do. This is the only possible reason he would give up that familiar weight, and even if it is a hollow gesture, it’s something.

Shiro is too stunned to object as Keith lays the chain around his neck. There’s muscle there that wasn’t there before, and another scar peeking up from under the collar of his vest, wider than the finger Keith can’t help but run over it as he tucks the chain inside the collar. It’s unbelievable, to think a wound like that wouldn’t be fatal, and it’s one of dozens—one of hundreds, probably

“Keith...”

He pulls his hands away, running his fingers along the chain one last time. “It didn’t protect you the first time. It was silly.”

 _I was silly._ He looks away. It’s an admission of something. Of dropping out of the Garrison, running to the desert, losing himself in mourning—all the ways he disappointed Shiro, or the memory of him.

“Hey, hey—“ Shiro cups his face in his hands and brushes his thumbs along the skin there, like he’s wiping away tears. It’s painful. Having this again is _painful._ He still can’t make himself believe it, can’t quite see the reality of it, “—no, Keith, hey. It worked. It did. I promise.”

Keith meets his eyes, finally, because there’s something choked in Shiro’s voice—he’s crying.

It’s quiet and messy, the fingers on his face shaking almost imperceptibly, even the metal ones. There are no words he knows to fix this—but maybe it doesn’t need to be fixed. Maybe it’s all right if they’re both a little broken over this.

He brings up a hand, holding the unfamiliar hardness of the metal fingers against his face. They don’t feel anything like skin, but they’re warm with their own inner heat, and it’s easy to turn against them and press his lips into Shiro’s palm. Another admission: they both lost something, but they both got something back.

It’s somehow the right thing, for the first time. Shiro’s hands fall away. The hug he folds Keith into is awkward and crushing. It almost lifts him off the floor, and then it does. There are going to be tears and snot on his jacket, he thinks, even as he pulls Shiro’s face in closer with a hand on the back of his neck.

Like a dam bursting at the worst possible moment, the thought startles a laugh out of him. There’s going to be snot on his jacket, because Shiro is crying on his shoulder, because Shiro is here—because Shiro is _alive._

“It’s not funny,” Shiro says, wet and muffled and fond.

But it is. Shiro’s voice is the best thing he’s heard in a year and seven days, at least. Better than pilot error _,_ better than the desert blowing in through the cracks in the windows of the shack, better than the soft, repetitive clinking of the tags against their chain.

“Sorry,” Keith says against his hair, and laughs again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to request something over on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/)!


	4. mall date shiro (crack)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4\. hi this is my OC mall date shiro!
>
>> The team goes back to the Space Mall, and Shiro lives the teenage dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [anonymous asked](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/165707653305/wait-it-doesnt-even-read-as-him-taking-keith-to):
> 
> wait it doesnt even read as him taking keith to mcdonalds. it feels more like shiro was out with keith and then saw mcdonalds and now he's going to order two big macs for himself and eat them as keith silently judges his boyfriend asdgfhkl;;

_Let’s go to the Space Mall_ , Coran said. _They have a new Earth restaurant,_ Coran said. _It’ll be fun_ , Coran said.

It’s not fun. 

Lance, Hunk, and Pidge are seated at the table next to what is unmistakably a McDonalds. _Even in space?_ Hunk had tsked, and yeah. As much as Lance misses Earth food, there are limits. Whatever they’re serving, it’s probably not cow—or worse, what if it _is_? Kaltenecker would never forgive him.

It’s hard to muster an appetite anyway. 

The minute they walked in the doors and Shiro realized that yes, the Space Mall was a mall in the traditional sense, he turned into this:

“Two big macs for only three ninety nine? Oh. My. Gawd.” Shiro grins, playful.  "Keith, if I don’t make it out of here, I want you to lead Voltron.“

It feels like a _lol_ should follow it. It feels like Shiro is suddenly the kind of person who would end a spoken sentence in _lol_.

Keith closes his eyes in evident despair as Shiro’s hand moves up his arm. It’s not the weird, overly familiar shoulder grasp they’re all used to pretending they don’t notice. Instead, it almost looks like he’s trying to hang off Keith’s arm, which he might– _might–_ be able to pull off if he didn’t have fifty pounds and 6 inches on Keith.

"What the fuck,” Lance mutters behind his hand as Shiro leans into Keith, tipping his head to rest against Keith’s shoulder—again, not happening, not when he could just as easily fit Keith’s entire body under his chin. Keith resituates his stance to accommodate the weight and doesn’t quite sigh, though his eyes move up and away like he doesn’t want to acknowledge the situation at all.

No, this isn’t—this isn’t ok, Lance thinks, and catches Hunk and Pidge’s gaze. They nod.

“Ok. Hey, we’re gonna head—“ Lance glances around, trying to find a decent excuse, “—over there! To the bathrooms. All of us. Be right back.” He grabs their arms and runs.

Keith doesn’t acknowledge him, and Shiro is too busy playing with Keith’s hair to do more than smile and nod absently.

As soon as they’re out of sight and earshot, they take a moment to breathe, and then _lose_ it.

“What—what was that? What did we just witness?” Hunk asks, hands in his hair. “I can’t go back out there, what is he _doing_?”

Lance takes a shaky breath. “I don’t know man. He’s acting like—like a fourteen year old girl.”

“ _Hey_.” Pidge frowns.

“Sorry. A twelve year old girl. Eleven, maybe. Do they go on dates to the mall when they’re eleven?”

Pidge squints at him, nose wrinkling. “How would I know? Wait, why don’t you know?”

“Okay, okay. Never mind.” Lance takes a deep breath, and another, moving his hands up and down with each one, trying to center himself against the madness. “Let’s just. Let’s take a breather and figure this out.”

Hunk laughs, but it’s a bleak sound. “What’s there to figure out?” he asks. “The man we knew and respected is gone.”

An image of Shiro as they last saw him, simpering on Keith’s shoulder, tugging at his hair, floats before his eyes, but—no. That can’t be it. Shiro is a hero, a legend, not this. _Not this_.

Lance grabs Hunk’s shoulders. “Look. Keith doesn’t seem that bothered. Maybe he knows what’s going on? Maybe it’s like, an undercover thing that they couldn’t tell us about?”

They seize on that. It’s the only plausible explanation, and it makes sense—right up until they get back to the table.

The pair has acquired food, and a new level of PDA.

Shiro is all but sitting in Keith’s lap, they’re seated so close, and he’s tearing into his highly suspect Big Macs like he hasn’t eaten in years. It’s a little horrific. They sit as far away from it as they can, which isn’t far enough when they realize Shiro can eat an entire Big Mac in four bites.

Lance glances at Pidge, who’s eyes are narrowed behind her glasses, mouth turned down in a grimace of pure disgust. Hunk has his lips pursed, like he doesn’t think Big Macs really qualify as food or that what Shiro is doing with his hands and mouth really qualifies as eating. It’s a massacre.

When he’s done—which is too fast, by half—he starts in on Keith’s french fries, and that’s when it really starts go downhill.

Shiro leans over Keith’s plate, pilfers another fry, and then holds it out to Keith, who jerks his head back and turns aside. It doesn’t make sense until Lance realizes Shiro is trying to feed him. 

God above, _Shiro is trying to feed him_.

Hunk shakes his head in the universal gesture of _hey guys I’m gonna go wait in the car and not be around this, see you later_. But there’s no way he’s abandoning Lance and Pidge to this. Lance grabs his collar before he can stand up. They’re a team, and team members don’t leave each other behind— 

“Stop trying to steal my fries!” Keith snaps, finally.

Shiro sniffs and leans back, shoving the fry in his own mouth in total disregard of Keith’s very valid pain. “No need to shout.”

“If you want fries, I’ll go get you some,” Keith says through gritted teeth.

“Oh, no.” Shiro folds his arms, looking away. “It’s fine.”

“Why are you being like—ok. Ok, fine. I’m going to go get some fries. You can eat some or not.”

Shiro watches him walk away, looking secretly pleased. And then he sits back, straightens up, and turns back into someone recognizable. He looks around the table. 

“You know you guys don’t have to hang with us if you’re not hungry,” he says, frowning.

“Oh, no,” Lance hears himself say faintly. “It’s fine.”

It’s morbid curiosity that keeps them there. Keith comes back with two orders of fries and settles into his seat, ignoring the bald stare they all give him, and the way Shiro immediately crowds back into his space and lays an arm around his shoulders, playing with his hair again.

They’re quiet for a moment, Keith glaring down at the table, Shiro staring at him beseechingly, before Keith throws up his hands. 

“I’m not feeding you fries!”

Shiro huffs and moves back to his own seat. “I wasn’t expecting you to.”

But he was. Oh god, he _was._

This isn’t an undercover operation. This is Shiro in his natural habitat. This is Shiro on a mall date. 

“Well.” Shiro sniffs and stands. “I’m going to the bathroom.” 

He’s pouting. He’s actually pouting.

As soon as he’s out of sight, Lance expects Keith to put his head straight down on the table and scream, but he doesn’t. He only sighs again and grabs a fry, nibbling on it absently.

“Uh, so, buddy…” Lance starts, but can’t figure out how to finish. Keith raises an eyebrow. “What’s uh… what’s up?”

Keith frowns. “With what?”

With what. How did Shiro and Keith find each other? Lance wonders. It must be fate or destiny or something _magical_ –

“With Shiro!” Hunk says, jarring the table. He’s too loud, but that’s understandable. They’re all on edge.

Keith sighs _again_ , and glances down. “Oh. _That._ He’s always like this on dates.”

“What do you mean, _he’s always like this on dates_. What, like, he has a date-sona?”

“Is that what it’s called?” Keith asks.

“No! That’s not what anything is called! That’s not a thing!”

“Then why did you—“ Keith shakes his head. “It’s fine. He’s just been stressed out lately. It’s ok. He likes malls.”

 _He likes malls,_ Pidge mouths to herself.

“You know. The atmosphere,” Keith clarifies. It doesn’t actually clear anything up, but it’s nice that he’s trying. “The last time we went was before—” he clears his throat, “—before everything. He made us get those matching shirts and took us to a photo booth. He spent two hours trying on outfits and making me comment on them. Just. I don’t know. He really. He really likes malls…” He trails off, and this is more than they’ve ever heard Keith say at one time in the entire time they’ve known him, but he’s not done. “Do you guys know what Claire’s is?”

Lance closes his eyes. “Yes.”

“Ok, well. He made us go to Claire’s? And—“

He cuts himself off, eyes going wide. Shiro is walking back, and he’s got on a dopey smile pasted across his face. It’s embarrassing, even at a distance.

“They have one of those claw machines,” he says when he gets to the table, bright eyed and far more excitedly than any human should.

Keith sighs—he’s using them like punctuation at this point—and stands up. “Yeah, I’ll see if I can win you something, babe.”

He gives them one last, mournful look, and lets Shiro drag him off.

They watch the pair go, sharing a moment of private introspection, trying to come to terms with a reality where the man tasked with leading the rebellion to save the universe is also the kind of person that hangs off his boyfriend’s arm and gets excited about claw machine plushies.

Hunk is the first one to recover. “I guess we all learned something today, didn’t we?” He takes a deep breath. “We learned—“

“Don’t,” Pidge interrupts, putting a hand over her eyes. “Please don’t.”

She has a point. There’s no salvaging this. 

Hunk stares back down at the table for a second, and then picks up one of the cooling french fries, rolls it between his fingers, takes a speculative bite, and gags, eyes going wide. He spits it back out, right on the table. 

Great. That’s—that’s great.

“Well,” Lance scoots back his chair, “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to take an L and try to forget this happened. …You guys wanna go see if they have another Kaltenecker?”

They both stare at him for a moment, and then shrug.

“Yeah, whatever. Why not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it causes me physical pain to say this, but there is now [fanart](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/165738287930/wait-it-doesnt-even-read-as-him-taking-keith-to) and it is utterly incredible. i seriously can't believe that my first fanart is both perfect, and for _this_.
> 
> the inimitable sunny wrote [a sequel to this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12185157/chapters/27662934) and it's both the best and worst thing that has ever been written. please, go read it and suffer as i have suffered. it answers the question: "what did shiro make keith buy at claire's?"
> 
> Feel free to request something horrible over on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/)!


	5. 'it says you punched him 50 billion times' (humor)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5\. 'it says you punched him 50 billion times'
>
>> “It says here that you…” he flips the sheet back over, to make sure he gets the wording right, “and I quote, punched McClain a sum of ‘like, fifty billion times.’“
>> 
>> Montgomery lets that hang between them. Kogane sniffs again and looks away, again, but in the opposite direction.
>> 
>> “That’s an excessive number of times, Cadet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> 'I read McLain's report. He said that you punched him "like, 50 billion times". That is an excessive number of times Kogane.'

Montgomery sighs and flips over the page. There’s nothing on the back. As far as incident reports go, this is… something else.

“Is this accurate, Kogane?” 

The cadet in question is seated across from his desk, arms folded, cadet jacket unzipped in what’s clearly an attempt at coolness. It’s failing, miserably. He looks like an angry cat, and the black-eye accentuates the overall effect.

Kogane doesn’t look at him, but sniffs and glances away. 

He’s the top student in his class and his instructors adore him; he’s not fooling anyone. 

“It says here that you…” he flips the sheet back over, to make sure he gets the wording right, “and I quote, punched McClain a sum of ‘like, fifty billion times.’“

Montgomery lets that hang between them. Kogane sniffs again and looks away, again, but in the opposite direction.

“That’s an excessive number of times, Cadet.”

Shirogane described it as three times, and something that might have been a slap, but Kogane is top of his class in self-defense as well as everything else—three is about all it would take. If anything, the slap was excessive. 

He makes a mental note to pull the footage of the mess hall later. It’s been a long year; they deserve a good laugh.

Kogane is still pretending he’s not in the same room, eyes focused vaguely on the middle distance between him and the _you, cadet, are the future_ poster on the wall, but his mouth twitches.

Montgomery takes a deep, centering breath. “The report goes on to say that Cadet Garrett, eyewitness to the fight described you, and again I quote, as a ‘berzerkoid.’”

Kogane is smiling now.

“And ‘totally aggro.’”

Kogane stifles a cough in his hand. It’s not a cough.

“…Is this accurate?”

Finally the cadet meets his eyes. He still has a hand over his mouth, obviously hiding a grin. He nods.

“We also have a conflicting report from Cadet Shirogane. It states that he attempted to steal a—a french fry off your plate, and that in the ensuing battle you accidentally upended your plate.”

He nods again, and his hand is fastened tight over his mouth. Nods are against regulation, but it’s better than him opening his mouth at this point. 

“He claims that the—french fries,” god, it’s physically painful to read this out loud, “flew onto Cadet McClain’s—” nope, no, “— _into_ his vicinity. Is this accurate?”

There’s a muffled laugh—not from the kid, but beyond the door. 

Oh, fucking fantastic. 

“Shirogane…” Montgomery puts a hand over his eyes, pressing down until he sees stars, trying to rub away the image of the two cadets covered in potato detritus and blood and their own shame. French fries are off the menu now, too. It was the first thing Iverson did, because they can’t have anything nice and this is why. It’s back to potato wedges and potato salad and what’s even the point? Why even bother?

Be a Garrison Instructor, they said. Change the future, they said. 

_Retirement is in two years. You can do this._

“I believe you have class, Shirogane,” he says, loud enough to carry beyond the door. “And seeing as this is your fault, you can clean the mess hall tonight.”

Kogane is still trying and failing to stifle his laughter. His eyes are pinched, and god, he’s actually crying. 

It’s not that funny. There’s no way it’s that funny. Right?

He pulls out a sticky note and scribbles down  _pull mess hall footage._

Kogane finally cracks, and it’s not a pretty laugh. It’s the kind of laugh that would make a cat hiss or a child cry. He sounds like he’s dying. From beyond the door, there’s the unmistakable sound of Shirogane joining him and losing the last of his dignity.

“Ok, Cadet, you know what–you can help him clean, and you can write me a report on why you should have… why you should  _not_ have…”

What’s the lesson here? Is there a lesson? Is there any meaning to life?

 _Two years_ , he reminds himself again. 

“…forget it. Dismissed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come send me weird asks on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com)!


	6. keith gets a new pet (humor)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i recently had an [encounter with a rat](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/165900974350/arahir-all-night-long-the-sword-on-the-wall). it was widely agreed that keith would have appreciated it.

Shiro gets the text at four in the morning. It’s from Keith, which is immediately alarming because Keith has never texted him past midnight in the three years they’ve known each other. It still takes him a moment to understand what he’s seeing as he thumbs his phone unlocked.

It’s a photo of a rat sitting on the pommel of one of Keith’s ridiculous swords. A rat. An actual _rat_.

_Look who woke me up. I guess chivalry is dead._

Shiro has to blink and turn on the lights, scrub a hand through his hair and take a few deep breaths to convince himself it’s not a dream.

He gets halfway through typing back _How did a rat get in your apartment_ , before another text pops up.

It’s another picture, but this time it’s a selfie.

Keith is shirtless, hair sleep-tussled, expression intense the way it always is in pictures he takes of himself. Shiro used to think it was affected, but nothing about him is. He’s effortlessly beautiful, and usually Shiro would already have it screen-shotted and saved to his private folder of shame, but—

The rat is perched on his shoulder.

 _We’re buddies now_ , the caption informs him.

Shiro takes a moment to absorb it, and then has to catch his phone when it slips through his fingers. He’s pressing dial before he has time to think about what he’s going to say.

Keith picks up on the third ring.

“Hey—“

“That’s a rat.”

There’s a long, long silence before Keith goes, “Oh.”

_Oh._

“Is it still in your apartment? Do you need me to come over?”

“No,” Keith says after another suspiciously long silence. “It’s fine.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s not fine.

They have a lunch “date” the next day, though it’s not lunch and it’s not a date, no matter what Matt says or how much Shiro would like it to be. It’s Keith’s turn to buy and he put his foot down on Shiro’s McDonald’s obsession— _“How do you look like that when you only eat french fries?”_ —so they’re getting something at the sit-down café in the park.

He’s barely seated when Keith shows up, and... he’s not alone.

The rat is bigger in person, and three times as ugly. It’s physically repulsive; Shiro has to stop himself from scooting back as Keith gets closer. It’s scarred up and toothy and it looks like it could rip Keith’s throat out with those teeth if he moved wrong.

Shiro feels faint.

“Keith...”

There are no words.

“Hey,” Keith says, sheepish. “I didn’t want to leave him alone in my apartment.”

“Yeah,” Shiro says through the buzz in his ears. “That makes sense.”

He waits for some kind of explanation, but Keith sits down across from him and picks up the menu, casual as can be. An older couple at a nearby table is staring openly, and that’s fair. Shiro can’t look away from the rat, either. It’s beady eyes are hypnotic and full of hatred.

“So. So, you’re going to keep it?” That’s the least of what’s wrong here, but it seems like a good place to start.

Keith glances up from the menu. “Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s his apartment too, you know? It doesn’t seem fair to kick him out.”

His voice is rough and sweet, and it twists the words around in Shiro's mind so they actually start to make sense.

It’s the kind of exacting logic only Keith could come up with. And it probably does make perfect sense in some way, in some reality, but in _this_ reality, the waiter walks by their table, sees the rat, and stops dead in his tracks. And then he screams.

Keith puts a protective hand around his—companion, as total chaos erupts. The scream is permission for everyone in a four table radius to unleash the mild concern they've been nursing, letting it build to hysteria in two seconds flat. Shiro can’t even judge them for it.

Eventually the hostess comes out and then the owner, and no, Keith doesn’t have a permit to have what’s effectively a wild animal and a health hazard in a public gathering space—no less a restaurant. Shiro pays for the meal they didn’t eat and tips fifty percent, but it’s implied they might find somewhere else to eat in the future anyway, and that’s fair.

“McDonald’s?” Keith asks as they walk away from the traumatized restaurant. “I’ll drive.”

Keith drives a motorcycle, and usually Shiro would leap at the chance to have Keith that close, but then the rat turns his little head and gives Shiro the stink eye. No. No, that’s not happening.

Wait—

“How did you ride here with—” Shiro motions vaguely to the rat, who twitches its nose at him.

Keith shrugs. “Pocket.”

And there goes Shiro’s favorite fantasy, because he’s never going to be able to imagine Keith in that jacket (and nothing else) again, without also seeing the rat peeking out of his pocket. It’s ruined. It's all ruined.

Shiro steadies himself with a deep breath. “No. It's fine. I’ll drive.”

It’s not safe to drive mid-crisis. That was part of his training at the station, but this doesn’t quite count as a crisis. Maybe if he ignores it, it will go away.

It doesn't, and it’s not until they’re sitting in his car in the McDonald’s parking lot that it hits him in full.

He's been in love with Keith for several years. That's an inexorable fact, like tides and the sunrise, and the rat isn't going to change that. Keith is a mass of inconsistencies and quirks and hidden skills. He's the kind of person that can handle any amount of pressure, and then be totally flummoxed by something as mundane as a drive through order.

_If you love him, you have to accept this._

"So... Does he have a name?" Shiro makes himself ask.

Keith brightens up. "Yeah. I've been calling him Shiwo."

He thinks he's misheard, but there's no version of that word that will make it ok.

"Shiro?"

"No—Shiwo."

_Don't ask._

"Why Shiwo?"

"Because rats can't pronounce hard R sounds," Keith says, and feeds the rat a french fry.

Shiro closes his eyes and leans his head against the window. "Why did you name him after me?"

"Oh." Keith chuckles. "Because he loves mac and cheese. And french fries, I guess. He's just like you."

It's not exactly what you want to hear from your crush. This disgusting, monstrous rat is obsessed with food, and everything about him reminds me of you. Ha ha ha.

Shiro's mood plummets like a stone in the ocean. It's enough, for one day. Time to throw in the towel. Head home, nurse his sick heart with a stiff drink.

"Do you want to come over for a movie later?" Keith's still not looking at him, tutting at the rat while in noshes on the french fry with horrific enthusiasm.

This is a test, Shiro thinks, but he's not sure what it's on or how to pass or what it will mean if he's pathetic enough to agree to a movie night just to spend time with his best friend and the man he's love with, even if it means spending time with his unwanted ratsona, too.

"Yeah, of course." Shiro smiles.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Movie night is an agony. Even before the advent of Shiwo, movie nights were pure pain. Not precisely, because spending time with Keith is a gift, but a year into their friendship he woke up on Keith's couch with Keith's hair in his mouth and Keith's arm over his waist and Keith's leg between his, and that was it.

 _You're better than this_ , he tells himself, as Keith leans against his shoulder, arms wrapped around Shiro's chest. He's so small, Shiro thinks to himself, and then immediately has the urge to ram his head against the wall.

But he is small.

He glances down at the top of Keith's head, the sounds of movie generated gunfire and explosions growing distant. It would be nothing to lean over and press a kiss to the top of his head.

Shiro contemplates it for a moment, and he's almost coming around to actually doing it, maybe, possibly, for the first time, when he sees the rat.

It's sitting on the couch beside Keith. It looks at Shiro and it _growls_.

Shiro jerks away from it on instinct—and away from Keith, by association. The motion jars Keith awake.

He blinks and wipes his eyes. "Did I fall asleep?"

Shiro wants to say yes, but he can't speak around whatever primal level of fear has its grip around his throat, because the rat is still growling. It's a sub-vocal purr that shouldn't be possible.

Keith comes fully awake and tuts at it. "Hey, enough."

He puts out a hand and the rat nuzzles against it—actually _nuzzles_.  And then Keith mimics the gesture, nuzzling back against Shiro's shoulder, and that's that.

It's the beginning of the end of Shiro's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some beloved soul [drew fanart](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/166829972300/crispypenguinanchor-arahir-i-drew-sheitor-with) for this and it's exactly as you'd expect it.
> 
> Come hit me up for the dumbest shit ever on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com), I guess! Or whatever!


	7. birthday sex (pwp)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Keith gets woken on his birthday exactly the way he deserves.](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/166717597725/how-about-no-angst-and-just-a-fic-where-shiro-and)
>
>> Keith in his natural state is quiet, almost painfully so. Shiro realizes he's holding his own breath while he listens, not wanting to interrupt, not wanting to miss any sound as Keith's body comes alive under his hands.

They've had the house for a few months when Shiro wakes up plastered to Keith's back on a cool morning and remembers: it's Keith’s birthday.

They're five years together, two years married, and everything comes easy now. They know each others rhythms and edges; he knows exactly how much space Keith needs.

In this case—none.

Keith is still fast asleep. He doesn't snore, but his breath is audible the way it never is when he's awake--unless they're doing this. He glides a hand over Keith's hip, where it's bony, even after years of home cooked meals.

It's a point of pride. Shiro likes cooking and he's passably good at it, and Keith likes eating anything he makes. He likes sharing a meal over the clutter on the dining table. He likes sitting on the counter, watching Shiro cook. He likes eating on the steps of their front porch, plate in his lap while they watch evening fall.

That was the one thing he wanted in a home, even if he never said it. Open space, and somewhere to watch it from. But he’s bad about asking for what he wants. Shiro has to watch and gather offhand comments to connect into something tangible—and more often than not, all Keith wants is what they both do.

Shiro trusts himself with this.

Keith's as much muscle as bone. His spine under Shiro's fingers doesn't stick out; it's an indent between the whipcord strength of his back. He's long and lean and warm with sleep; Shiro wants to bury his face in his hair, in the dip between his shoulder blades.

The sun is barely up. The house is shrouded in trees that prolong the pre-dawn light. Keith wanted them because a life time in the desert has made him crave the green of growing things as much as he loves and needs open space, and this home has both. Another thing he didn’t ask for, but when they were looking at a place to buy and found this one, he lost Keith half way through the tour and found him in the yard sitting under one of the trees, half asleep.

That one was easy to figure out.

Shiro’s already half hard from waking up with Keith pressed against him, which is something he thought he’d outgrown. It’s familiar now, like his body is aware even in sleep that he’s got something warm and strong in his arms. It takes nothing to bring himself to full hardness, rolling his hips against Keith’s, gentle and slow.

There's time, and he takes it. Keith sleeps like the dead, so he drags his hand from Keith's hip, up his chest, lingering against his ribs and collar bone and the hard muscle in between. He's beautiful, and he's perfect, even with the map of scars over his sternum and peeking around his side, just below his ribs—and it wouldn't matter if he was as scarred as Shiro. He would still be beautiful.

Shiro breathes against his hair, thumbs over his nipple until it's hard, and settles his hand around Keith's neck. He's delicate there, like he isn't anywhere else.

His other hand is crushed under Keith's hip; he edges it up until he can run his fingers over the softness and hair between Keith's thighs. Keith doesn't usually sleep naked, but last night was his birthday night--at least, that's what Shiro said, and Keith let himself be convinced and pulled down. His body is still languid with it, and Keith is small enough that Shiro can run his thumb down and over and between his cheeks, to check. He's still loose. That makes it easier, makes it better, gives him time to revel in this before Keith comes awake and rises against him.

He wants Keith to wake up half-fucked, with Shiro's hand over his dick, pulling him in on shallow thrusts. He wants Keith to wake up breathless and hard. He wants Keith to wake up gasping.

It goes easy. The lube is under the pillow in Keith's side of the bed; he uncaps it and warms it in his hand, taking the time to rub his thumb over Keith's chest until the cadence of his breath is starting to change. Shiro can feel it as much as hear it, the ribs under his fingers expanding and contracting.

Everything about him is beautiful, and this most if all: he's quiet when he's on. He thinks Shiro doesn't know, but after years together, this is one of their last secrets. Keith makes noise, but for him. Every cry is something purposeful, something meant to egg Shiro on.

Keith in his natural state is quiet, almost painfully so. Shiro realizes he's holding his own breath while he listens, not wanting to interrupt, not wanting to miss any sound as Keith's body comes alive under his hands.

He burns. They both do. Keith is like a furnace, even dead asleep. There's already sweat beading on his thighs and against the hollow of his neck. He's like that. Shiro moves a knee between his legs, inches it slowly until he's pressed flush, giving Keith’s body something to rub against.

Keith sighs in his sleep, and presses into the hand that’s wrapped around his neck. Shiro tightens his grip, holding him steady so he can nose against Keith’s hair, smell his sweat and shampoo. The pillow is almost lost--they're both flat against the bed, and he just wants to touch.

This is the one good thing he has; the first good thing. Someone bright and fierce and always there-- always. Keith would come for him at the edge of the world and pull him back. Keith would fight for him and know him and trust him. Keith would give him a ring in a park, surrounded by strangers, and beg—like begging is something he had to do.

It was unnecessary. Shiro was his from that first meeting at the Garrison, from their first shared flight, and Shiro is his now. He wants to make Keith move against him, even in sleep.

He presses a finger inside, gentle-slow, and another. It goes easy, and he's still wet deep down. They didn't spare time to clean up like they should have. It's a bad habit, and one he secretly cherishes, because there's nothing like licking his own taste out of Keith, with Keith's knees rising aground his shoulders, a heel low over his spine, pulling him in.

When he's stretched and warm and his breath has evened out again, Shiro presses inside him.

Finally, Keith comes awake. He shudders on a gasp, hips thrusting back against the heat inside him on instinct. Shiro steadies him with a hand on his hip, forcing him into stillness so Shiro can push into him the way he wants to. It's Keith's birthday, but Shiro knows every angle, every point that will make him shake and steal his breath. Something peripheral in him wants to take his time with it, wants to make it last, until Keith is inarticulate and in tears.

Later, maybe.

Keith gives a soft, "Fuck," and then presses his head back. It's the only thing he can do. Shiro mouths against his hair where it's already damp with sweat.

"Happy birthday," he mutters, and thrusts all the way in.

Keith shudders and arches; the sound that comes out of him is barely human.

It takes minutes. Shiro holds him steady with the hand over his neck and between his legs--both tighter than is strictly comfortable, and exactly how Keith wants it.

They're both close, and all it takes is a thumb in his mouth and another over the head of his dick where to have him coming with a gasp—only a gasp. That's its own triumph, Shiro thinks as he works him through it--he's too sleep-sweet and blissed out to remember he wants to make a show out of it.

Shiro grabs his chin and maneuvers him into a kiss while he's still lax and breathing hard. He's so pliant that he can't gather himself enough to try to meet Shiro's last thrusts.

He comes hard, pulling Keith in and holding him steady, losing the kiss in the heat of it, so he's breathing against Keith's cheek, open-mouthed. Where Keith is quiet, Shiro is loud; he couldn’t stifle his moan if he tried.

They stay like that for a moment, wet and hot, breathing hard, totally content. It’s simple between them, and the best he’s ever had. He eases out slowly and runs his hand up Keith's stomach and chest, leaving a trail of slick wet all the way up, until both his hands are buried in Keith's dark hair and he can pull him around into a proper kiss.

Keith groans. “Morning breath,” he mutters, when Shiro pulls away. He doesn’t mean it; he loves being woken up like that, and the only challenge is going to be prying him out of bed to get cleaned up. He gets stubborn about it, beyond reason, so Shiro presses another kiss to his temple and leaves him to it.

There’s another groan from the bed as Keith rolls enough to watch him get dressed. He’s transparent about it, and Shiro isn’t self-conscious about the scars anymore—not when Keith’s flushed face goes red again, like the sight of Shiro pulling on sweat pants is somehow irresistible. It makes him feel wanted in that specific way; it sends satisfaction curling down his spine.

Keith hides his face against the sheets at Shiro’s smile, grumbling. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around on my birthday?”

It’s Keith for _I’m too lazy to clean myself up so I’m going to lie here and bitch about it until you have to carry me into the shower and do it yourself_.

Shiro laughs. “Are you complaining?”

Keith nuzzles into the bed and shakes his head, still blushing.

“I’ll make it up to you later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me about everything Keith deserves on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com).


	8. halloween sheiths (humor)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Shiro gets lost in a corn maze and Keith shows a new side.](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/166997188025/will-you-be-posting-hte-halloween-sheithies-today)
>
>> "I told you you should have gotten him a GPS tracker. Or like, a bell at least—"
>> 
>> "Yeah, I get it,” Keith says, and pokes through the corn to the side of the path with one hand, like Shiro is going to be hiding back there behind a solitary stalk.
>> 
>> "I mean, even a whistle—"

The corn maze goes about as well as to be expected—which is to say, not very.

It's Pidge's idea, because she takes all the finer points of the holiday almost as serious as Keith does, but in all the wrong ways. Between her and Matt, they're in for at least three jump scares a season. It’s like no one ever explained that Halloween isn't April Fool's Day: Extreme Edition. But knowing what Shiro knows about their family, Sam Holt probably considers that his life’s work.

So when Pidge suggests with innocence and carefully constructed casualty that they go to the corn maze on Halloween, every one of Shiro’s alarm bells goes off. But majority rule wins, and even though Keith is unfailingly loyal, two against three—those three in particular—is nothing. At least Matt’s off-world, and Pidge does have a point: a corn maze in the day time is less terrifying than a corn maze at night.

That, it turns out, is fatally incorrect.

What Shiro learns two hours in is this: the postcard aerial map of the maze that they handed out at the entrance is more of a teaser trailer than a full picture, Keith was not being overprotective by strongly suggesting that they tie themselves together with the rope he conjured out of nowhere and then, failing that, insisting that they hold hands. As it turns out, a corn maze in the day time is infinitely more creepy than a corn maze at night.

The dry stalks rustle in the fall breeze, and it's the kind of rustling that implies a level of sentience and malice that shouldn't be possible. Corn doesn't know him. Corn doesn't know what he fears. It just wants him to think it does.

He loses the group in the dumbest way possible.

It's Lance's fault. _Let's split into teams_ is a fancy way of saying _let's split up_ , but it's no less of a bad idea. Shiro only agrees because Keith does. Sure, there are better places to make out, but beggars can't be choosers, and there's a nine to ten chance that Keith will be down for second base. Maybe third, if Shiro smiles right and tugs on his hair a little.

Shiro never gets to find out.

They're minutes in when Shiro lets go of Keith's hand to pull off his jacket, turns a corner, and when he holds his hand back, Keith doesn't take it. And when he turns around, Keith is nowhere in sight.

"Keith?"

Dead silence, rustling, and no Keith.

Yelling seems like an overreaction, so he doubles back, and back, and it's a half hour before he realizes that he's lost. Honest to god lost in a corn maze. Keith is going to kill him. Or worse—Keith is going to be worried, and sad, and now they're not going to make it to any base. He's actively losing bases with every new dead end.

At thirty years old, this is one of those things he thought he would outgrow. How do you get lost in a grocery store? How do you get lost two blocks from your own house? How do you get lost when It's a wonder, but the kind that's causing real stress in his life. Lance jokes about getting him a GPS collar and Keith's gaze goes speculative. Where's the dignity and respect? An adult. He's an _adult_.

And he keeps telling himself that. In a fit of malice, he tosses the postcard map, but another ten minutes in, there it is, lying in the dirt and chaff, a way marker for his own shame. He walks by it three more times before the sun starts to set, and panic is just starting to bite at his heels.

Not because he's scared of the dark, because he's not. Of course he's not. It's a terror borne of the stress he's causing the group, and the stress he's causing Keith, and absolutely nothing else. Not the slow onset of night he can feel whispering on the breeze, not the eerie, discordant rustling of the dry corn, not the endless circles, like the labyrinth is something primal and sentient, trying to trap him.

His solitude hits him by degrees; it's been hours since he saw another person. Since he saw another living thing. It seems like there should be birds, at least, but there's not a peep, and when he looks up there's _nothing_. The sky is empty. No geese flying south, no insects buzzing around—not even the phantom contrail of a plane.

He's _alone_.

The logical thing to do is choose a direction and start walking right through the dead corn, but the second the idea occurs to him, so does the sure thought: that's what it wants.

_Go on. Walk on in. I won't hurt you._

Not a chance. Sentient or not, the corn isn't going to defeat him. Worst come to worst, he's got an apex of alien bioweaponry hanging off his right side—he’ll cut his way out and pay the damages. The thought sends a vital boost of confidence through him. He imaginines it—leveling the whole field to avenge his lost time and peace of mind.

It’s just corn. There’s nothing out here stronger than him

It works great, right up until the moment he rounds another corner and sees the scarecrow. It’s a shock, that’s all. From an intellectual perspective, seeing something like that after hours of ominous silence—it’s a shock.

He shouts in valid dismay—it’s _not_ a scream—and falls backwards, landing hard on his ass in the dirt.

It's one of those holiday horror scarecrows with long fingers and demon face, and who thought that was a good idea? It would traumatize any child. The eyes are coal pits that look inward, right into his soul, leaving him hollow. This is the demon at the heart of the maze, and it sees him.

Another thread of panic winds its way through him, constricting around his chest, and then he hears it. Rustling, like an animal, moving fast through the corn, zeroing in on him with malicious intent.

 

* * *

 

"I told you you should have gotten him a GPS tracker. Or like, a bell at least—"

"Yeah, I get it,” Keith says, and pokes through the corn to the side of the path with one hand, like Shiro is going to be hiding back there behind a solitary stalk.

"I mean, even a whistle—"

"I know!"

Lance sighs. "When I said _split into teams_ , that was code for _please take a quiet moment so you don't jump each other's bones at the Halloween party later_."

"Yeah," Keith mutters, "I _know_.”

"Did you at lease get to—"

"No! It's corn. It's a corn maze. There are kids everywhere. What about that is at all—appropriate?"

"I don't know. What was appropriate about the back of my Toyota?" It’s been a year, but there are some things you can’t forgive, some things you can’t forget, and he hasn’t been able to look in the back seat since.

Hunk moans. "Can we talk about this later? Or never?"

"Why are you so freaked out about this anyway? He’s only been gone for ten minutes. Remember the time he tried to walk home drunk and we didn't see him for two days?"

"Worst two days of my life," sighs Hunk, "and I'm not even married to the guy."

Keith’s eyes go distant for a moment, but he shakes it off. That’s for the best. No one wants a replay of the time he almost beat up a police officer for laughing at him when he found out their missing person was a thirty year old veteran built like a tank. "I’m just worried. He watch _Signs_ last night."

This is another ongoing problem. Shiro expresses an interest in a genre of movie that there’s no evidence he can handle. He’s like a preteen downing a glass of bourbon because Stacy’s parents are gone and they didn’t lock their liquor cabinet. His desire to watch scary movies keep writing checks the rest of them have to cash—mostly Keith.

It’s suspicious. Either Keith is the biggest push-over imaginable, or there’s something else going on, but no. There’s no way Keith is _that_ cunning.

"Why would you do that?" Hunk moans at him. "You know how he gets—"

"I know. But it's just a movie." He’s look up and to the side and not meeting anyone’s eyes and wow. Wow. He actually _is_ that cunning.

Pidge sees right through him and pounces on it. She lets her voice go deep and gruff and mocks, " _Oh, Keith, you're so big and strong, please hold me so the aliens don't get me..._ "

Yep. That’s it. Case closed.

“Keith, are you deliberately letting Shiro watch scary movies? Is this a translation of your deep-seated need to protect him, expressing itself in a contradictory manner now that we’re not fighting for our lives and the wellbeing of the entire universe?” Lance asks, almost innocent.

Keith sighs and glances down, toeing the dirt. “You know, you’ve been a real ass since you took that psychology course.”

Hunk and Pidge share a look—uncalled for—but Keith’s words are a deflection, not a denial, and they taught him all about that too.

“Man, you think you know a guy.” Lance shakes his head and tsks.

“Look,” Keith sighs, “can we just focus on finding him?”

But Hunk’s still stuck on point one. “Wait, how can he be scared of aliens? You’re an alien, his arm is an alien,” he counts off fingers, “he used to fight aliens—a lot of aliens—and Allura is an alien—“

“Are you going to list off every alien we know?” Pidge asks. The shine is going off the corn maze, and that’s too bad. Halloween is like her religion, and one Lance subscribes to wholeheartedly. She’s gone all in on the costume—black dress, cat ears, tail, the little whiskers. It’s killer, and she knows it.

And Lance knows it. And that’s a problem. He gets lost for a moment in memorizing the folds of her dress and the way it moves as they walk, and then in tearing his gaze away and avoiding looking anywhere near her. Big problem, come to think of it.

The ear-shattering scream pulls him out of it. It’s close, and it’s familiar in a distant sense, even though it sounds like it came from a ten year old girl.

Keith gasps, “Shiro,” and then he’s bounding off into the corn, like he’s fucking Clark Kent.

It happens so fast that they have to take a moment to process it, staring after him where he disappeared into the field. It looks dark, and it looks dirty, and the three of them share a look.

Lance is on the verge of putting his foot down with a solid, _I’m not going in there,_ but Pidge beats him to it. She rips off her cat ears. “This is typical,” she mutters, and ducks into the corn after him.

“Wait, Pidge—“ Hunk follows her like a puppy—and great. Now if Lance doesn’t go too he’ll be a total jerk.

Yeah. Typical.

When they find Shiro, he’s only five rows over. He’s sitting on the ground, staring up at one of those cute little flannel and straw button-eyed scarecrows like it’s the devil incarnate. As soon as Keith bursts through the corn, he screams again and grabs his chest.

Keith rushes to his side and pulls Shiro into his arms, right there in the dirt, like his jeans aren’t black and Shiro doesn’t weigh roughly twice as much as him. Like Shiro doesn’t have a plasma sword for an arm. Shiro doesn’t seem to mind.

The three of them find somewhere else to look, because there’s only so much they can pretend not to see—Shiro definitely doesn’t need help standing up, and he doesn’t need Keith to flex his arms like _that_ to do it.

“What happened?” Keith asks.

“I don’t know. I turned around and you were gone, and I tried to find you, and then it was getting _dark_ —“ Shiro mutters, and Keith pulls him closer. He sounds scared, which is valid, except...

“You were gone for ten minutes.” Lance holds his arms out, gesturing to the sun and blue sky. It’s one of those to-die-for indian summer days, heat cut by a nice breeze, birds chirping, not a cloud in the sky. “It’s _noon_.”

Keith shoots him a glare and mutters something about maps as Shiro buries his face in Keith’s hair, arms snaking around his waist—and this is exactly what they were trying to avoid. Great. Handsy Keith and Shiro are a menace, and for some reason sharing a house and a bed full time hasn’t done anything to abate it. You’d think they’d get bored with it, but it was a year after their wedding that Lance found them disgracing is Toyota and realized the honeymoon was never going to be over. This is the reality they all have to deal with.

“You know, this wouldn’t have happened if you let me do the thing,” Lance says.

Keith glances over at him, frowning. “What thing?”

Oh, he asked for it.

"You know..." Lance puts his hands around his mouth like he's about to yodel, "...H—hewwo? Sh—"

Pidge slaps a hand over his mouth, with prejudice, and shakes her head. Yeah, she’s right, that’s played.

Keith’s chooses the high road and ignores him, walking off with Shiro still hanging off his arm. They’re a sight, leaning into each other, somehow managing to make it look both awkward and in-synch, despite the egregious difference in height and size.

Hunk leans in and whispers, “Maybe this is a thing. You know, like the scary movies? I mean, it’s been a while since Shiro got lost, right? Maybe Keith needed a fix.”

“A fix?” Pidge asks, fox-eared and not missing a beat. “What, like a _Shiro’s lost and I’m beside myself with worry_ fix? Why?”

Ahead of them, Shiro presses a kiss to Keith’s hair, and Keith turns into it, hanging his arm lower around Shiro’s waist—low enough that his hand can skate along under the hem of Shiro’s shirt and under the waist of his jeans with plausible deniability.

“Ohhh,” Pidge whispers. “Never mind. I get it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come be spooky with me on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com)!


	9. halloween sheiths 2 (humor + fluff)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Keith is both a cat and a sexy witch. Get you a man who can do both.](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/167035261590/maybe-can-you-do-something-where-keith-dresses-up)
>
>> Shiro pushes his head over the back of the couch, aiming for something nonchalant and enticing, hoping beyond hope that he'll be able to get Keith to kiss him right there, but even from upside down there's something off.
>> 
>> "Are you—are those cat ears?"
>> 
>> Keith stops dead in his tracks and turns toward him. "What?"

"Why does the party have to be at our house?" Keith mutters, in between ferrying Halloween candy around the house, like they’re somehow going to need multiple bowls of it.

Hunk leans in from the kitchen, "Because you own a house."

That's fair.

Keith gets scattered over Halloween. There’s something stressful about having that many people in his space, but also something good, because this is the one holiday Keith can remember fondly. Shiro doesn’t know the details, but from what he’s been able to glean, even as a foster kid it didn't take much to shove him in a discount costume and send him out with a bag to gather candy.

If ever he did it with his parents, if he remembers, he hasn't said, and Shiro hasn't asked. You can love someone without holding all their secrets.

Shiro is sprawled on the couch, legs propped on the coffee table, playing wingman for Pidge and Lance so they have an excuse to get up close and personal on their end of the couch—at least, it makes a nice story. The couch is Shiro's second love. If Keith ever leaves him, at least he'll have something.

The front door slams shut and Keith streaks by, again.

"I think there are tricker treaters coming," he says, with the same or greater seriousness he would use to announce a Galra cruiser. He stops by the couch. "Are you watching another bad movie?"

It’s some shlock about a possessed pancake recipe, certified bad, but that’s not how Keith means it.

He means bad like _are you going to wake me up at 2am when you need to get a glass of water and make me come with you because you watched this?_ Shiro is absolutely going to do that because at thirty he has no shame left and anyway, Keith secretly loves it.

Shiro pushes his head over the back of the couch, aiming for something nonchalant and enticing, hoping beyond hope that he'll be able to get Keith to kiss him right there, but even from upside down there's something off.

"Are you—are those cat ears?"

Keith stops dead in his tracks and turns toward him. "What?"

They _are_. Someone managed to get Pidge’s cat ears on Keith without him noticing, and that someone is a hero. It’s red-letter. A gift beyond dreaming. They even match his hair, and where the ears were hilariously oversized on Pidge, on Keith they look almost natural.

Keith reaches up to pull them off—

“Wait, wait!” Shiro rolls over so he can see him right side up, and ends up half-hanging over the back of the couch, hand outstretched.

Keith gives him a sour look, hands on his hips. “Really.”

“I just want to see! You never dress up.”

And that’s the exact moment Shiro notices the tail. The whole situation moves from humorous and playful to dead dangerous in two seconds flat, because that wasn’t something Shiro knew he wanted, but he _wants_ it. The corn maze was a crapshoot, and they haven’t had a moment all day, probably won’t now, but the image of Keith in cat ears and a tail is going to haunt him.

He doesn’t realize how long he’s been staring until Keith blushes and glances away, shifting uncomfortably. Lance fake coughs against his hand—it’s an insult that he would bother to try—but that sets Pidge off, too. Hunk’s stupidity-dar must go off because he leans in from the kitchen again, brows raised.

“Keith, wait,” Pidge manages between giggles. “Keith, please—what sound does a kitty make?”

His blush goes deeper. “ _Meow_ ,” he deadpans. “There. I hate you all. Are you happy?” He rips off the ears and the tail—Shiro can’t stifle his little moan of pain—and dumps them on Pidge and Lance, stomping off toward the kitchen.

Shiro is left staring after him, still hanging over the back of the couch, almost bereft. He flops back down with a sigh and tries not to stare at the ears and tail where they’re sitting in Lance’s lap.

“You guys have gotten a lot weirder since you got married,” mutters Lance, like they didn’t have to put up with him ogling Pidge all day for the same reason.

The evening goes smoother than they expect—better than the corn maze, at least, which everyone is forbidden from bringing up ever again. The first surprise are the several hundred tricky treaters they end up getting, which seems like a fatal flaw of the neighborhood and something they should have researched ahead of time. Three hours in, they’re (nearly) candy-less.

The second surprise is Keith.

He treats handing out candy like it’s a sacred duty. Lance produces a suspicious and egregious witch hat out of nowhere, says something about the kids loving it, and that’s all it takes for Keith to stuff it on his head. It’s a different side to him, and Shiro’s never heard his voice go soft the way it does when he’s asking a kid about their costume. He files it away for later. Much later. That’s something he needs time and quiet to examine and decide what he wants to do with.

 

* * *

 

The end of the evening finds Shiro in the kitchen, turning the thought over while he does a survey of what Halloween candy they have left while Keith cleans up in the living room. The

Keith slides into the kitchen—slides, in his boots, like he's trying and failing to do a reverse moonwalk. "Guess what I am?" he asks. He's not slurring, but his eyes are too bright and unfocused, even under the rim of the ridiculous witch hat he's still wearing.

"Are you a w—"

"I'm a sexy witch!" he crows.

Yeah, that's not good. Keith doesn't crow anything, and Shiro can count on one hand the number of times the word _sexy_ has come out of his mouth. Keith isn't a lightweight, which means someone has been funneling him doubles and that someone is definitely Lance. And Pidge.

There goes any chance at a serious conversation. Shiro sighs and sets down the bowl of candy he definitely hasn't been picking the little bags of M&Ms out of. (Kids don't value M&Ms like they should, and a man has needs.) "What makes you a sexy witch?" Shiro asks.

He's lovely, of course, but that's what Lance refers to as Shiro Vision. Keith's wearing the exact same thing he always wears: grey on black, t-shirt and jeans—simple. It's not exactly fish nets and a lacy skirt.

Keith grins. "It's a secret."

Oh, that's not good—

"You can see later." He winks and drapes himself against the door frame, in a way he can only have picked up from some horrible daytime television, or Lance. Fondness wriggles up Shiro's spine, despite himself.

"Why can't I see now?" Shiro holds his arms out, beckoning.

Keith eyes him for a moment, still smiling, and then does his decidedly un-slick slide across the floor and falls right against Shiro.

"Is that how witches walk?" Shiro laughs.

Keith giggles against his shoulder. It's a rough, low sound, and one he cherishes. "No," he mumbles, "just the sexy ones."

Shiro wraps his arms around his back, pulling him in, and feels something crinkle under the fabric of Keith’s shirt, right above the top of his pants. "What—?"

Keith is quivering in barely contained laughter as Shiro drags his hand underneath it and pries the sticker off his skin. It's right where a specific brand of tattoo would be, and he's forming a mental list of everyone who Keith would actually let get close enough to stick anything there. Hunk, maybe.

And then he sees what's on it.

It's a silhouette of what's probably supposed to be a witch (sexy variant) wrapped in curling, sparkling purple script:

_Save a Broom, Ride a Witch._

His brain shorts out for a moment, and Keith finally loses it. "How does that even make sense?" he mutters, trying to decide if the thought of riding Keith while he's wearing the hat is more ridiculous than it is appealing. There's a baseline appeal there, but—no. Not happening. Maybe reverse? Like if he didn't have to look at it? But he would still know it was there.

He smooshes the sticker flat on Keith's forehead, pushing his bangs and the hat out of the way with the motion. Keith scrunches his eyes shut—cute—and then starts laughing again, harder.

"You're really far gone, huh?" Shiro tuts.

"I'm a sexy witch, you've gotta—" he snorts mid chuckle, "—you've gotta ride me." He gasps it, voice almost breaking, like it really is _that_ funny.

"I don't think anyone is riding anything tonight."

Keith rolls his eyes, like he's not going to pass out within two seconds of lying down—like Shiro isn't going to have to wake him up five minutes later with aspirin and a glass of water. "...Do you have to wear the hat?"

"Yeah, that's the point."

"That's the point? The hat? Not me?'

Keith snorts and presses a kiss to his neck, all sloppy. His breath smells like cider, and there’s nothing Shiro would rather have than this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shiro at 2am, lying awake in terror, remembering every horror movie at once: i’m sure he won’t wake up if i carry him downstairs with me to get water 
> 
> Come chat with me on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com).


	10. keith learns how to dab (humor)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10\. keith learns how to dab
>
>> “He's twenty,” Lance says, hands motioning to Keith like he’s an exhibit in a zoo. “He's the only twenty year old male human in the galaxy that doesn't know how to dab.” Lance says it like dabbing is going to save Keith’s life someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [anonymous said](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/167993239276/does-keith-know-how-to-dab): Does Keith know how to dab?

"I still don't get it.”

Lance heaves a sigh. “Shiro, please help.”

Shiro glances up from where he's pretending to be reading something important on the data pad. He's not. They don't have sudoku in space but they have something almost the same that's 20x20 with little alien cat faces in different colors.

“I don't know what you're trying to do.”

The lie is worth it just for Lance’s pursed lips and Keith’s little, victorious smile.

“He's twenty,” Lance says, hands motioning to Keith like he’s an exhibit in a zoo. “He's the only twenty year old male human in the galaxy that doesn't know how to dab.” Lance says it like dabbing is going to save Keith’s life someday.

Shiro turns his attention back to the data pad, tapping in a blue kitty on the fourth row. It meows in victory. You start out as the best pilot on Earth, and end up doing space cat sudoku while your team argues about dabbing. Typical. “What makes you think I know how to dab?”

Keith nods in reflexive agreement, but Lance’s whole face goes sly. “Well, _Matt_ showed me some photos of you and—”

Nope. No.

That's tantamount to blackmail, and Shiro starts cataloging a mental list of every photo the little snake could possibly have brought from Earth. The dabbing is the least of it. If Lance finds out about the Christmas Ball fiasco—

“Ok,” Shiro sighs and stands, “ _dabbing_.”

The look Keith gives him is both betrayed and disappointed. _This is to protect us_ , Shiro tries to say with his eyes. _Think of the photos._

Some of it must get across because Keith goes into student mode, easy as that.

But if Lance thought Shiro was the key to unlocking Keith’s secret dabbing talent, ten minutes in, it becomes apparent he was mistaken. Shiro dabs once to demonstrate, and Keith closes his eyes like his respect for Shiro is dying inside of him and taking part of his soul with it.

It’s not his fault—dabbing is one of those concepts custom designed to confuse Keith. The motion is easy enough, but the why of it eludes him, and Keith never does anything unless he has a reason.

“But _why?_ ” he asks, again. For the tenth time in as many minutes. His arms are folded so tight it looks like he was born that way—like he’s scared any stray arm swing will be misinterpreted as a dab now.

Lance groans and clutches his head. He should have know better after the Voltron chant thing. He's brought this on himself. He’s brought this on all of them.

“Keith, you do it when you do something—cool,” Shiro explains.

“Yeah! And then you go—” Lance dabs and says, “ _dab!_ ”

Keith looks at him like he'd rather give up his status as a Paladin of Voltron than say that word out loud. Ever.

“You don't have to say it.” Shiro puts a hand on his shoulder and leans in close enough to mutter, “Look, just do it once so he'll stop, ok?” Shiro is seconds from blinking out _Christmas Ball photos_ in Morse code.

Keith’s eyes go steely, and he gets that look on his face that Shiro has come to associate with Keith and desperate moral dilemmas—the kind that involve life and death.

It can't be that big of a deal, Shiro thinks as he steps away, but then Lance dabs again—says _dab!,_ too _—_ and part of Shiro dies with it. Maybe Keith has a point. There are some things you can't do, as a matter of personal pride. Like drink peppermint schnapps ever again when the smell of it is a sense memory that reminds you of the first time you realized you wanted to lick your best friend's leg, all the way down and all the way up.

Shiro scrubs a hand through his hair and tries to banish the memory. “You know he's not going to give this up. He has the mental capacity of an excited twelve year old.”

“Hey—” Lance starts.

“I'm not… dabbing,” Keith says.

It’s a cage match, Shiro realizes. A cage match between Keith’s sense of honor and self-worth and Lance’s love of classic memes. An unstoppable object versus an immovable force, or something.

“Keith, please. I'm begging you. I'm on hands and knees buddy,” Lance says, and he actually is.

“Lance, if he doesn't want to dab, then—”

Lance scrambles back to his feet. “No! I'm just a boy, standing in front of a boy, asking him to dab with me.” He's trying to do something with his eyes to make them look sad, like a puppy, but Keith looks more disgusted than moved.

“Keith—” Shiro tries, but in a final act of petulance, Keith rolls his eyes at him. “ _Keith_.”

“Just dab, just once, please? I just want to know you can do it,” Lance moans.

“Keith, come on. Please?” Shiro does his own version of puppy eyes and a moan. It's marginally more effective in that Keith’s face goes red, at least, if for the wrong reasons.

Keith closes his eyes, working his jaw back and forth.

Shiro lets his voice drop. “Keith, _please_?”

That’s all it takes. Keith’s eyes shoot open in anger, blush rising in his cheeks. “God! Fine!”

Lance jumps at Keith with a whoop—

It’s not clear in the aftermath what he intended to do. Hug him, maybe, for no discernible reason, but that’s the exact moment Keith throws his arms out to one side.

It's a solid dab, judging by the sound Keith’s arm makes when it collides with Lance’s face.

Lance makes a wounded sound and goes down, hard, and Keith and Shiro lose a few seconds of time to staring down at where he’s splayed on the floor.

He manages to pull himself halfway up, with a groan. “Why did you do that?” he moans from under the hand he has fastened over his face.

He’s dripping blood, so it comes out more like _whyb dib you doob dat?_ and it takes a second to parse. There's a nanosecond where Keith looks like he's considering being apologetic about it, but then Lance follows it up with, “And youb dibn't say dab!”

Keith leaves him right there on the floor.

“Ok, well,” Shiro says, when Keith is gone, “that could have gone better.” It couldn’t have gone worse.

But no, Shiro realizes in that moment. That’s not true. Lance could have brought up any other photo, and there’s a not null chance that Keith would have stabbed him over it. In fact—

“Did Matt show you any other photos?” Shiro asks, kneeling down beside Lance.

Lance’s eyes go wide. “Whab?”

Shiro puts a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Did Matt,” Shiro squeezes, “show you any other photos? It's a simple question.” Shiro increases the pressure, until he’s sure Lance understands the full breadth of his seriousness. It’s his Galra hand.

Lance stares at him for another second, eyes darting down to the hand where it’s starting to glow, and then shakes his head as hard as he can.

“Good. That's great.” Shiro stands, dusting himself off. “Let's get you some ice.”

He doesn’t look behind him to check if Lance is following.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come request something nice and then watch me write shit like this on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com)!


	11. dog tags 1.5 (angst + pwp)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11\. dog tags 1.5: the galra find keith
>
>> He fights, he wins, he grits his teeth on the operating table. He gains scars and loses his memory, but he tears apart what's left for every spare piece—for the sound of Keith’s voice and the texture of his hair and skin.

He survives.

He survives because he has to. They take his arm and his dignity and the tags around his neck, but they don't take what's important. He builds a shrine in his heart to dark hair and blue eyes and a private smile--a life so distant he can barely remember it. This one thing he gets, he tells himself.

This one thing he can keep safe.

The knowledge keeps him whole. He fights, he wins, he grits his teeth on the operating table. He gains scars and loses his memory, but he tears apart what's left for every spare piece—for the sound of Keith’s voice and the texture of his hair and skin.

He remembers the first time he heard Keith laugh, and it keeps him going for a week, for a round in the arena and another stint on the slab table where they do something to his arm that make it feel like it’s on fire.

The second the scene builds in his mind, he knows it will never be so clear again, so he clings to it. This one thing is his, alone.

Until it isn't.

 

* * *

 

“You've exceeded our expectations,” says the Witch, “and I would like to do more.” She motions to the guards behind her. “But I fear you lack the proper motivation.”

He’s seen her twice, each time worse than the last. She was there after his first fight, standing in the corridor, watching him pass, like a bad omen. She was there when they took his arm and she was there when they replaced it--but they didn’t take everything, and that was the worst part. Knowing that his bone and sinew were a part of it, feeling it come alive and knowing it was _him._

There’s more of him left to take. Third time’s the charm, Shiro thinks, and then sees he’s right: the guards part, and they're dragging something between them.

For a moment he thinks he's dreaming.

They lay the body on the floor before him—gentle in a way the Galra never are—and even under the blood, he'd knows that face. He would know it by touch alone.

“Keith? Wh—” His throat closes up on the question before it can form. Even in his mind, through the haze that never leaves him now, he can't form a thought past the desire to touch.

But he's still cuffed. He scrambles forward, tucking as much of Keith as he can under him, until he can push his face into the blood- and sweat-matted hair on the back of Keith’s neck, breathing in his heat.

Shiro knows that spot. He knows every inch of Keith, but he's tasted the sweat right there at the top his spine and panted his desire against it and whispered oaths to that spot.

It's Keith.

The chain around his neck is gone, and in its place is a thin band of metal, glowing purple against his pale skin, but it’s Keith.

His world spins and reorients. Keith is there, and Keith is hurt. The why and how don't matter.

“He's mine,” he hears himself say in a voice he didn't know he was capable of using, desperate and furious in equal measure. “He's _mine_.”

If they kill Keith, they'll never get another fight out of him. Not one they want to see, anyway. But when he glances up, the Witch is smiling under her hood.

“Uncuff him,” she says.

That's the moment everything changes--and that's the point, he realizes.

As the shackles come off, he has a choice. Two arms, one a weapon, a year of fighting and a year of torture, the mastermind of it all close enough to kill—

And something precious, closer still.

That's the choice. That's why they brought him. You can keep something compliant with threats and chains, but only for so long. Keith is their insurance.

And Shiro’s obedience is Keith’s.

He gathers Keith into his arms and bends his body around his smaller frame. Much smaller, now. Either Keith has lost weight or Shiro’s gained mass—or both. No one moves to stop him.

“He fought when we captured him,” one of the guards says, with humor or pride. “He fought well, for something so small. Like a Galra,” he adds, in a private joke. Like Keith could be so cruel.

 

* * *

 

They give him a new cell: a room, with doors that won't open, and windows that look out on the stars and darkness, and a soft, wide bed. And Keith.

They give him Keith.

When they take him away from the Witch, he gathers Keith into his arms and defies anyone to argue, but no one blinks.

In the new cell, he lays him on the bed, and stretches out beside him to wait for him to wake, watching his breath rise and fall in his chest. There’s blood over his face and down his neck, dried and flaking, but he looks healthy. He looks strong.

If that’s really Keith, he realizes, and in the same moment: it doesn’t matter.

When Keith wakes, it's explosive. He went down fighting and comes up mid-punch. He sees Shiro out of the corner of his eye and rolls on top of him with a snarl, reeling his fist back.

And freezes.

“Shiro?”

His voice, his clear eyes—Shiro closes his own, because he can’t have this so close and have i taken away. Keith has the same thought he first did--touch has always been the most honest, least reserved thing between them. If there’s a lie between them, it won't hold up against fingers and breath.

The next thing Shiro feels are lips against his, rough and split. The mouth against his tastes like blood, but he knows it, and that’s all he needs.

Shiro threads his fingers through Keith’s hair and grips tight enough to pull, to make him press in closer, holding him there. Keith returns it in kind, brings his hands up to grasp at Shiro’s face, with a strangled sound that vibrates up his throat and into Shiro’s mouth.

The desire that burns through him at the sound and the feeling of Keith’s body on his is a shock. A year of being touch starved and scared and hyper focused on the memory of _this_ \--

Keith pulls back enough to mutter, “Fuck, I missed you,” before he surges back.

In some distant part of his mind, Shiro registers the changes in the body under his hands. Harder, thinner, hair longer than the Garrison likes it.

He's not the only one his absence left a mark on. There's time for regret and time to figure it out, but right now he needs this as much as Keith wants it.

And he wants it.

Keith's already hard where he's pressed against Shiro’s hip, and Shiro spreads his legs, giving him somewhere to settle and move. It's artless—more so than their first time in the dark and against the door of Shiro’s room at the Garrison, but it's pitched the same; Keith pressing him back, wanting it as much as Shiro, but less afraid to take what he needs.

That was after months of wanting, and neither of them knew what they were missing then.

A year of desperation and longing hits him all at once. Keith has never been hesitant about using his strength in bed, and the way he moves is almost overwhelming, right on the edge of too hard and too much. And then he works a hand between them, and there’s no easy way into the bodysuit covering Shiro, but they’re not strangers to making due.

He comes so fast under Keith’s hands, he should be ashamed—might have been a year ago, but Keith gasps his own climax against Shiro’s mouth a moment later. It’s the first good moment he’s had in so long, he almost can’t believe it.

There's satisfaction thrumming through his limbs, but none of the desperation is dulled. He wants Keith inside him, Keith’s hand in his hair, pulling. He wants Keith everywhere. There's nothing but bad here, and Keith is a balm over every wound.

“How do you get this thing off?” Keith asks, running his hands down Shiro’s sides, trying to find the seams in the dark bodysuit.

Shiro releases the death grip he has on Keith’s hair and draws his metal arm up his own side, splitting the fabric on a whim.

Keith starts at the sight, but then sits back and stares. Shiro must be a sight. The arm is most of it, but he's scarred and aged, too. Mirrors aren't a luxury the Galra afford him, but he sees more than enough in the windows in the way to the Arena.

But if Keith is put off, he doesn’t show it. There's nothing condemning in his gaze. He looks satisfied, thoughtful, like he's memorizing every new line. There's still blood under his nose and down his chin, but his lips are clean. Shiro can still taste it at the corner of his mouth.

Keith pulls the rest of the clinging black cloth away to the side, settling his hand on Shiro’s chest, over one of the fresher scars.

“They told me you were dead,” he says.

And they told me you were safe, Shiro thinks.

Keith pulls off his stained tee in one smooth motion, baring and flexing the new muscle over his torso and shoulders in a move that would be pure vanity on anyone else. He makes it look natural, and Shiro privately files away the sight, cataloging the changes in his body.

He's bruised across his ribs, but not fatally. The part that catches his breath is the collar. It shines dully in the light, and Shiro stretches out a hand to it without thinking, setting the fingertips of his human hand against it. Hot to touch, from Keith's body heat alone.

“I'm going to get you out of here,” Shiro says.

Keith stares down at him for a second, fond.

“No,” he says, and his voice has always been sweet. “I’m going to get you out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come request something that isn't crack on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com)! Please, I'm begging you.


	12. post series married (angst + fluff + pwp)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 12\. post series married sheith
>
>> Shiro wants to talk about having kids, but Keith has some walls up.

It's winter when they start to shake apart.

They’re two years married and doing well—better than, even. It turns out living together is easy when you’ve been doing it for years. Owning a home is easy, too, once Shiro gets Keith to admit he knows nothing about plumbing and they can afford to hire someone to do everything that life as a Paladin didn't teach them.

(Most things relevant to life on earth, as it turns out.)  
  
And Shiro figures, if they can own two dogs and a home and lead an intergalactic resistance together, they can have kids. Keith has gained confidence and age and experience; his childhood is still a no-go zone, but he likes kids, and he’s good with them.

It occurs to him at Halloween and once the thought settles in, it won't leave. It's almost selfish. What they have is perfect—and he wants more of it. A family, a busy house, something to grow and build and raise together.

There’s no reason to think it will go as poorly as it does.

Shiro chooses a quiet evening. The two of them, after an easy week and a good meal and half of a movie that neither of them are paying more attention than they are each other.

They’re sitting on the couch, leaned together under a heavy blanket like the heat isn’t on high—like Keith isn’t a human heater himself.

“You like kids, right?” Shiro opens with, because it seems safe and Keith is too guileless to read anything more into the offhand mention.

Keith wipes his face against Shiro’s arm. “Yeah. They're cool.”

That's not the first word Shiro would use—it's not in the top ten—but it's in the right direction.

Shiro lets him settle and then asks softly, "Do you... want kids?" Strategically, it seems like the best move. Casual and honest. Keith is intense enough for both of them and he hates lies. Something slow and easy and open is exactly what he needs.

That, it turns out, is a fatal mistake.

Keith pulls away, looks up at him with something like shock or hurt, and something goes wrong. Something falls apart.

His face crumples and he's up and gone, tearing upstairs before Shiro can say a word to stop him. Shiro doesn't move for a moment, replaying his words, trying to find the catch. Past the shock he realizes: this is something that can break them. Shiro will give as much ground as he needs to on this, but now that it's been brought up, Keith will always doubt. He'll always wonder if Shiro is happy without them—if Shiro is happy with _him_.

Don't panic, he tells himself. If it were bad—really bad—Keith would have headed for the front door and his bike and the open road. He's done it twice before, and both times Shiro didn't have a hope in hell of hunting him down.  
  
When Keith doubts, he runs. The ring around his finger is the only tangible thing holding him down sometimes, Shiro thinks, though he knows it’s irrational. Keith isn’t a teen anymore, and he’s not going to disappear at the first sign of sorrow.

He lets it lie for an hour while he does dishes and waits for the sound of the shower to shut off. It's a long wait, but the hardest part of marriage has been figuring out that sometimes your best friend needs a break from being your husband. Keith needs his space, even from Shiro.

When he finally makes his way up to the bedroom, Keith is already in bed, staring up at the ceiling like he’ll drill a hole through it if he tries hard enough.

Shiro settles over him, using his weight to his advantage—not to trap, but to hold. Keith prefers to be on top, but he likes Shiro’s weight against him just as much. It's one of those things that took years to suss out.

Keith doesn't pull away this time, but he raises his hands to Shiro’s hips out of habit, and Shiro takes it as permission to kiss his way down his chest and stomach, stopping to press his lips over the edge of hair below his navel. He's warm from the shower He would go further—wants to go further, wants to make Keith sigh and pull his hair and press into his mouth until he can't think and isn't stuck in his own head, but Keith won't appreciate it, so he lays his cheek there and stretches out, staring up at him.

"What's wrong?" he asks, when he realizes Keith isn't going to talk.  
  
Keith rolls the thought around for a minute. "I can't have kids," he says finally.  
  
It pulls the air out of the room. For a moment Shiro thinks he means it literally, but this isn’t Keith deflecting or avoiding. This is him stating simple fact—this isn’t something he thinks he’s capable of being.  
  
"Why?" He can't let this lie. He can't give up something that means this much—not without understanding why.  
  
Instead of answering, Keith throws an arm over his eyes, and Shiro settles in, working an arm around his waist. Patience, if it takes all night. This isn't something they can let lie. This has the potential to fester, to rot their life from the inside out.  
  
Again, he's too quiet for too long. "I know you like kids," Shiro coaxes him. He can feel the despair rolling off of Keith in waves; it's painful to watch. "You'd be a good dad—”  
  
“I'm gone too much. It's dangerous.”

He's not wrong. Keith is still a Paladin of Voltron. Duty doesn't call on him often, but when it does, the cost is high.

And Shiro never lets him go alone.  
  
“I'm gone when you are.” Shiro presses another kiss to his stomach. Precious—he's so precious, and this can't break them.  
  
“It’s not fair.” To a child, he means, and of course that's what's on his mind.  
  
There's always going to be a risk, he wants to say but that's not going to help. There's a line he has to straddle between honesty and comfort with Keith. Lies won't work, but the truth has to be framed right. Not everything is dire.  
  
"It's not fair to give a kid a home?” he tries.  
  
"Not if you're going to take it away.”  
  
There it is.  
  
They don't talk about this. Keith's childhood is the third rail of their relationship, and that's something that hasn't changed, even as they have. His first year at the Galaxy Garrison, when Keith was fresh out of the desert and a little unreal, Shiro read between the lines and decided Keith wouldn't appreciate questions. Or maybe that he'd appreciate that it didn't matter—because to Shiro, it didn't.  
  
And it still doesn't, but.  
  
"Even if something happens to us, they wouldn't be alone. They'd have people to take care of them. Our friends—"  
  
"It's not the same," Keith cuts him off, with prejudice. The vehemence is a shock. He's still got his arm over his eyes, so Shiro can't see his expression, but he sounds like he's on the verge of tears.    
  
Shiro nuzzles into his hip. They're about to hit a brick wall, and historically that hasn't worked out well for them.

"Ok," Shiro sighs. "Ok, I have an idea. Come on."  
  
He levers off Keith and the bed, but Keith doesn't move an inch. "Keith..."  
  
Not a twitch.  
  
"Fine." Shiro pulls the arm away from Keith's eyes—god, he _is_ crying—and uses it as leverage to heft Keith up, and over his shoulder. The weight is a momentary shock—he's not light, but he's lean. Shiro doesn't use his size against him often, but sometimes Keith needs to be reminded that he's not the only one with an iron will and strength to back it up.  
  
"No, Shiro—" Keith doesn't fight but goes tense, like a cat that's shocked anyone would dare manhandle it. "Wait—"  
  
Keith doesn't cry. Once, out of anger and frustration. Once, out of pain. Never in mourning, and the thought has Shiro closer to panic than he has any right to be.

Years after war, he’s still strong enough to carry Keith downstairs. Keith thinks it’s funny he still does push-ups every day, but this is why, he thinks, as he plops Keith down in a chair in the kitchen. He pulls out a pot, and milk out of the fridge, and chocolate and cinnamon out of the cupboard.

“Shiro.”

That’s Keith’s _I’m an adult_ voice, and he is, but he’s been one the entire time Shiro’s known him. He deserves hot chocolate at midnight.

Shiro doesn’t respond and Keith watches him mix it together in judgmental silence. It takes a few minutes, but they need the time. This is how they unwind—Keith watching him cook while they share their day. When Shiro sets a warm mug in his hands, he sips without comment.

He likes it, though. Shiro can tell by the quirk of his lips, and he’s not crying anymore—that’s the only victory Shiro wanted.

He lets himself lean against the counter and watch Keith enjoy it while he thinks about what he wants to say. A dozen phrases and arguments run through his mind. Touch, though—that’s first between them.

Shiro picks his words and then kneels in front of Keith, gathers both of Keith's hands in his own where they're sitting in Keith's lap and sets his chin on Keith's knees without taking his eyes off Keith. He's staring down at their clasped hands. "Can I say something?" Shiro asks.  
  
Keith meets his eyes.  
  
"I think you want kids,” Shiro says. It’s an assumption, and a safe one. Shiro has seen him with children—the care, the thought, his smile—it means something. “...I think you'd be good with them. And nothing can go so wrong that we can't fix it, but you know what?" Shiro lets his voice go soft. "It doesn't matter. You don't have to decide today, or tomorrow—or in a year.”

Or ever, if that’s what it comes to.  
  
It takes a second for that to sink in. Everything about them has been set to go for so long. No time to stop and breathe, and they were good at that.

They can be good at this, too.  
  
"...Ok," Keith says finally, a lot soft and a little unsure, still looking down at Shiro, black hair hanging around his eyes.  
  
He's stunning, and the odd, irrational thought occurs: it’s too bad they can't have kids. Any child of Keith's would be lovely.

The thought is so embarrassing it makes him blush—Shiro has to push his face into Keith's arm to hide it by habit, though there's no way Keith can see it in the dark. There's no way Keith would care.

 

* * *

 

When they get back to bed, Keith gets in first and moves aside to let Shiro settle in next to him, and then he swings a leg over Shiro’s hips without a word, graceful and assuming. This late in their relationship, there's no element to sex that can surprise him—except how much he wants it. Keith is strength and power and all his desires in one compact body.

“It’s late,” Shiro says, but Keith’s only response is to bend and press his mouth against Shiro’s throat, kissing his way up his jaw, to his lips, and then back down his chest, mouthing at him until Shiro is starting to feel it.

The rhythm is familiar. It’s what they do after a battle, when they’re both geared up and need to let loose, and Shiro loves this—when the point is to exhaust and comfort more than entice, and they're good at it; they have stamina to spare. The latent adrenaline that lurks in the calm moments of their lives comes out at the smallest urging.

When they’re both ready, Keith presses him down into the pillow top with a hand over his chest and guides him in with the other, sinking onto him with a groan that makes Shiro twitch.

Years of knowing each other’s moves makes it easy, and Keith moves like he wants to feel it in the morning, raising the pace until they're both out of breath and Shiro's hands are pressing bruises into his thighs, trying to make it last.

"You're so fucking beautiful," Shiro gasps when Keith leans back and changes the angle of his rise and fall just so, thighs shaking against his hands and where his knees are pressed into Shiro’s hips. He's like magic, without meaning to be. The roll of Keith's hips ruined him years ago.

Keith's rhythm stutters. "You can't see me in the dark," he says between breaths, low and wrecked.

Shiro doesn’t argue, but he kneads his thumbs into the inside of Keith's thighs where they're sweat-damp and warm, pulling another thready sound out of him, and then takes him in hand. It doesn’t matter; Keith is beautiful, and that’s the least of his appeal.  
  
Shiro comes first, with gritted teeth and a bit-off moan. Even now, the old habits of carrying on a relationship in close quarters with the other Paladins are instilled bone-deep. Keith stills at the feel of it and Shiro uses the moment to work a hand over him. He prefers using his mouth, but Keith likes his hands, likes to be moved and held and worked at.

It doesn't take long; he comes with a quiet, panting sigh and falls forward, bracing on his forearms above Shiro, so close that they’re breathing the same air.

And he still smells like chocolate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me about my addiction to married sheith AUs on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com)!


	13. keith carries shiro (humor + fluff)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 13\. keith carries shiro in his big strong arms
>
>> Keith lays a hand on his thigh in what’s probably intended to be a comforting gesture, but Shiro flinches, pulling his legs together, almost squirming. “You’re really strong,” he says, so quiet it’s almost like he doesn’t want Keith to hear—almost like he didn’t mean to say it at all.
>> 
>> But Keith turns a smile on him. “Yeah. I think it's because I’m part Galra. Makes sense, now.”
>> 
>> Shiro swallows. “How much can you lift?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please enjoy this extremely self-indulgent thing i wrote a while back in protest of every weak keith characterization
> 
> [[fic on tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/169287095965/hi-do-you-remember-a-long-long-time-ago-youm)]

"Come on! We've gotta go," Keith says, strained.

He’s on watch behind them while Pidge and Hunk finish up—whatever it is that Pidge and Hunk are doing. Bright lights, lots of wires, beeps that probably mean something, but Lance has no idea what. Shiro is lying propped against one wall because he thought he could jump off the side of the base to get away from the small army of Galra drones chasing them and discovered halfway down that his jetpack was busted; even he’s not _that_ good.

“ _Guys.”_

There's a crack like lightning but harder and worse—it shakes the ground under their feet, the sky above them lighting up in violet so dark it’s almost black. It sends a collective shudder through the five of them. Druid magic, and pure power.

No—not druid magic. Not _only_ druid magic. That’s Haggar. Her level of power and ferocity is unmistakable; the magnitude of it has Lance shaking. The the last time they dealt with her face-first she almost crushed them. She doesn’t waste time on speeches and threats. By the time you notice she has a plan, it’s already over.

Lance slaps at Hunk’s shoulder as another spike of lightning splits the sky. It’s louder and close enough to cast them all in blacklight. “Now, please?”

Hunk heaves him off and does something that has the whole console lighting up in familiar green, and then sighs and wipes his brow. “Ok, ok. That should do it. Let’s get out of here.”

It’s the work of moments to gather up their gear and stuff it in Pidge’s pack. It was supposed to be intel gathering, but the Galra have been sharp; it went pear-shaped almost as soon as they landed in Blue.

Keith looks around the corner and gives the all clear, and good—the sooner they’re out, the better. Lance takes point behind Keith, motioning the others, but before they can take off Shiro stops them with a wet cough.

“Sorry, but...” he trails off, motioning to his leg and—

Oh shit.

He’s been keeping it concealed, but the twist of his ankle is unmistakable. That’s not how anything should bend. It’s broken, and there’s no way he’s walking out of here. The look in his eyes says he knows. His gaze is fastened on Keith, an apology writ in the wrinkle between his eyebrows.

Keith retracts his Bayard and kneels down beside him. “What’s wrong?” he asks, sap-sweet and patient the way he only is for Shiro. “Just the ankle?” He skates his hand down Shiro’s body, not quite touching.

Shiro nods without moving his head off the wall, looking down at Keith. “Sorry,” he says. The word is loaded.

“What?” Keith glances up at him, seeming genuinely confused. That’s going to be the hardest part of this, Lance realizes. They can double back once they get Blue and pick Shiro up, but they’re going to have to leave him here and Haggar has a singular fixation where Shiro is concerned. There’s a chance they won’t be fast enough. Half of Lance wants to say fuck it and run for Blue solo, try to get back in time, but there’s even less of a chance that he can make it there solo. Even with the four of them together, it’s going to be a challenge.

“Keith, there’s not enough time. You guys need to go now.” He says it calm and steady, but there’s a barely audible waver around the edges of it. If Shiro has a fear, it’s being taken captive again, and they all know it.

He lays a hand on Keith’s shoulder, and it’s one of those gestures limited to the two of them. There’s no butting in on it, but they need to hurry and Keith still isn’t on board. “What are you talking about?”

“Keith—I can’t walk.” The waver in his voice is more pronounced. “You have to leave me here.”

The silence is punctuated by distant explosions, and the sound of what might be a Galra cruiser touching down. They’re out of time, and Keith still looks lost, brows furrowed as he looks back at them.

“But—“

“ _Keith_.”

“No, what are you talking about? You’re coming with us. I’ll carry you.” He sounds so sure, but the image is ridiculous. The Paladin armor adds an extra twenty pounds, at least, and Shiro already dwarfs him in every way—

Evidently, Keith didn’t get that memo. He bends, edging one arm around Shiro’s shoulders, the other under his knees, and then he _lifts._ He makes it look effortless. Shiro’s eyes go wide like he’s a deer in the road and Keith is an eighteen wheeler barreling down on him. There’s so much power in the gesture that Keith has time to go slow, making sure not to jostle the hurt ankle, though Shiro looks like he wouldn’t notice if he did.

He’s not breathing, oddly tense, and when he soaks his voice is an octave off where it should be.  “Keith?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, low and steady. “I’ve got you.” He’s not even out of breath.

He walks right past Lance and the others where they’re staring with unabashed awe, and he’s not even walking like he’s carrying something, let alone two hundred plus pounds of wounded Paladin in full armor. Shiro shoots them a panicked look as he goes by, face red as Keith’s arm guards.

They follow the pair, almost entranced. Keith goes slow, but Lance has the feeling he could go twice as fast if he wasn’t so worried about jostling Shiro’s leg.

Not once the whole walk back does he stop; he's not even out of breath, not even when they have to sprint the last quarter mile to the Blue Lion. He pauses behind a pile of debris and makes Shiro loop an arm around his neck and runs for it like he's empty-handed, and he's _fast_. Shiro’s face is stuck on a permanent blush. The whole scene is surreal.

When they’re safely installed in Blue and kicking off toward the wormhole, Keith sets Shiro against the back of the cockpit with lingering care. Shiro can’t meet their eyes. He’s focused on the middle distance, almost dazed.

“Does it hurt?” Keith asks.

Shiro starts. “No, not—not really.” By the quiver in his limbs, he's lying.

Keith lays a hand on his thigh in what’s probably intended to be a comforting gesture, but Shiro flinches, pulling his legs together, almost squirming. “You’re really strong,” he says, so quiet it’s almost like he doesn’t want Keith to hear—almost like he didn’t mean to say it at all.

But Keith turns a smile on him. “Yeah. I think it's because I’m part Galra. Makes sense, now.”

Shiro swallows. “How much can you lift?”

Keith shrugs. “A lot. You're nothing. Why?”

That would have been great information to have at any prior moment to this, but a few things are starting to come together, like that time he drop-kicked Sendak who was roughly six times his size not counting the massive robotech arm.

Shiro’s eyes flutter shut. “No reason,” he says, voice off again.

It must be the pain finally catching up with him, but Lance has a Lion to pilot and a Galra fleet to dodge; that’s the last he sees until they’re back to the Castleship. Shiro lets Keith carry him off, and this time he’s not tense. He throws his arms around Keith’s neck without hesitation, settles into his arms with ease.

Hunk coughs and shares a look with Pidge and that’s unfair. Lance could get a joke if they’d explain it.

“Can you carry me all the way to the infirmary?” Shiro asks. “I don’t want to be a hassle—“

Keith huffs, cutting him off. “Yeah. Of course. You’re not even heavy.”

 

* * *

 

The ankle doesn’t warrant a full stay in the healing pod. When Shiro comes out, Keith is there to catch him before he can put his full weight on the freshly mended bone.

Coran is waiting nearby with the crutch he rigged up after a full five hours of argument and discussion between Hunk and Pidge and him. Altean or Earth design? How tall? Should they be designed to withstand compressive force or shear force? Lance wasn’t going to stick around to watch three engineers argue about specs and the relative crushing power of Shiro’s biceps. The end result is serviceable if slapdash.

Coran presents them like he’s handing over a holy sword—but Shiro isn’t paying attention to Coran; Shiro isn’t paying attention to anyone. His eyes aren’t quite glazed, but he looks distracted, to an intense degree. Maybe it's pain. Keith is holding him up with an arm looped around his waist, muscles bulging under his t-shirt with the effort of bearing Shiro’s weight.

“Dude, are you ok?” Lance asks. The first five minutes out of a healing pod are iffy—he knows from experience.

Shiro nods, but makes no effort to put more weight on his un-hurt foot. At least Keith doesn’t seem to be bothered about it, and god, his bias is painfully obvious. If it were anyone else—if it were _Lance—_ they’d be on their ass in seconds.

The crutch doesn’t pan out.

Keith helps Shiro get stable with his hands on Shiro’s hips, but the second Shiro’s full weight is off him and on the crutch and Keith removes his hands, Shiro makes a little, pained sound. Lance has never heard him make a pained sound, of any size. Not like that, at least, and by the looks on everyone else’s faces, neither have they. Keith is back at his side in an instant, kneeling in front of him to check his ankle.

He's close enough that they're all getting a great hands on demonstration of the size differential between Keith's head and Shiro's thighs. If Lance were a lesser man he'd make a lewd joke, but before he has the chance to consider it the crutch under Shiro’s robotic hand makes a hissing, bubbling sound—

It falls apart. It _melts_ into a puddle of steaming alloy, burned through by Shiro’s hand; they’re left staring in shock—even Shiro, looking down at his empty hand like it’s just killed his only friend.

At least Keith's there to catch Shiro before he tips over.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened—"

"Hey, it's ok man," Hunk assures him, but if the tears in his eyes are anything to go by, it isn’t. Coran and Pidge look a little heartbroken, too, like the crutch was their firstborn child or something. Lance shares a look with Allura, who’s staring at the puddle of melted metal with a little frown.

"I guess it won't hurt to walk on it,” Shiro says—wrong—but Keith is having none of it.

"No, it’s fine. I'll just—"

Keith turns and kneels in front of Shiro, facing away from him this time, which is marginally better than having his face in Shiro’s crotch, but not much. “I can give you a ride to the lounge at least.”

The _lounge_ is on the other side of the ship, and his face is already red.

“I could carry him easier—“ Allura offers, managing to sound both magnanimous and like there’s nothing she’d rather do less than get in between whatever is going on with the two of them.

They’re not paying attention. Keith glances over his shoulder at Shiro, smiling, soft and sweet. “It’s fine. I can take it.”

There’s no way he meant it the way it sounds—Lance gets some small conciliatory satisfaction in knowing it’ll haunt Shiro as much as it’s going to haunt them.

It turns out Keith can lift Shiro on his back with _ease_. The only sign he’s struggling by the time they get to the lounge is—again—the sheen of sweat over his face and neck. There’s something fascinating about Shiro’s transformation into someone who needs to be protected, held, cared for, and Keith’s transformation into something… else.

Shiro starts to slip, and Keith gives a quiet, “Sorry,” and boosts Shiro’s thighs up higher around his waist. “Hold on, ok?”

Shiro nods where his face is pressed in Keith’s hair, and that can’t be comfortable—not with the sweat, and who’s to say Keith washed it during the five hours Shiro spent in the healing pod? Lance didn’t see him leave the room.

“Did Keith take a shower?” Lance whispers at the group, where they’re trailing behind.

“ _Yes_ , I did,” Keith says without turning around. “Why do you care, anyway?”

Lance tries to look indignant, but Pidge and Hunk are giving him identical looks of disdain, while Allura looks—sad, like she expected better.

“I don’t! I’m just worried about Shiro getting your germs on him.”

Keith rolls his eyes, but goes red around the ears. “Sorry, Shiro.”

And great—now Lance is the asshole. But Shiro only shakes his head and says, “No, you smell good.”

Keith stumbles a step.

“I meant—you smell fine. It’s fine.” To prove his point or hide his shame, Shiro pushes his face against Keith’s shoulder. There’s no way that jacket has been washed since they got to space.

Keith spends the next week ferrying Shiro around.

Everyone knows his ankle is better by the second day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just... needed this. Come request more of strong Keith on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com).


	14. officer shiro interrogates a suspect (humor)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 14\. officer shiro interrogates a suspect
>
>> The kid is lean, his dark hair long enough to brush the collar of his dark blazer. It’s expensive, and he’d look like some college kid who got in a slap fight at a club on his weekend break if he wasn’t grinning around the blood. It’s coating his teeth and dripped down his neck, staining his caustic red shirt to something darker. He’s a mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based on [this art](http://lightningstrikes-art.tumblr.com/post/170975888589) that ruined my life because why is shiro standing like that... why... explain...

“Leave him in room three,” Shiro says.

The kid is lean, his dark hair long enough to brush the collar of his blazer. It’s expensive and he’d look like some drunk college kid who got in a slap fight outside the club on his weekend break if he wasn’t grinning around the blood. It’s coating his teeth and dripped down his neck, staining his caustic red shirt to something darker. He’s a mess.

“My own room? Really?” His eyes are sparkling like this is funny somehow. The rookie that brought him—Lance, of course—puts a hand on his shoulder, trying to march him toward the door, but Keith shrugs him off. “I’m going, I’m going,” he mutters.

Shiro watches them disappear down the hallway, trying to settle his nerves, giving himself time to calm down before he jumps in.

It’s almost time for him to clock out, but he’ll make time for this. He has to. No one questions that he’ll be the one going in; it’s habit by now. No one really wants to deal with him anyway. Shiro grabs the kid’s file off his desk where it keeps semi-permanent residence and heads after them, pausing outside to roll up his sleeves and check himself in a passing window and make sure he doesn't look as flustered as he feels.

The usual routine doesn’t work with this type—with this kid, specifically. There's no way to throw him off balance that Shiro knows. The trick is to have control of the situation right out the door, but it’s a tall order.

Shiro takes a breath and steps inside. Lance and the kid look up at him with opposing expressions. It’s almost comical—the kid is pure delight and Lance looks like the two minutes he had to spend watching him were more like thirty and twice too many.

“Finally,” he mutters, pushing past Shiro before the door can close behind him. “Have fun with—” he waves his arm in the kid’s general direction in aimless frustration, “—with _that,_ ” he says like the kid defies explanation, and lets the door slam shut behind him.

He’s easily frustrated, but Shiro understands the sentiment.

“Keith.”

Keith grins at him. It’s still ghastly. His lip is split, Shiro realizes, and bad. “Officer.”

Shiro sets his file down and flips it open. It’s full to the brim with photos—of Keith, mostly, and Shiro privately thinks that whoever was set to watch him was having a little too much fun with it. “You’ve had a bad month.”

“Are you the good cop today? Really?” Keith rests his elbow on his table and his head on his hand in nonchalance that Shiro wishes was affected but isn’t, and then he looks down Shiro's body and all the way back up, raising an eyebrow at the way Shiro’s got his foot up on the chair. It's not regulation, it's not how he was trained, but at least it's got Keith distracted—he'll take any advantage he can get.

Shiro ignores the look, pushing the two most recent photos across the table. Keith eyes them but doesn’t move to pick them up. They’re two angles of the same scene—Keith and a man taller than him, taller than _Shiro_ , with long blond hair, standing close. Too close. The Keith in the photos is dressed almost the same as the one sitting in front of him, but he’s not smiling in the images. He’s not looking at the man, either.

“Can you tell me who this is?”

Keith’s smile falls off his face. “An asshole.”

Shiro thinks that’s all he’s going to say but then Keith puts both hands flat on the table and looks down. When he speaks it's so quiet that Shiro has to lean over the table toward him to hear. “He’s with another group. New in town. We don’t get along.”

No names, no details, but Shiro can read between the lines. It’s more than Keith usually gives him—and they’re at the station. It takes an act of god to get him to admit to anything once he knows there might be someone other than Shiro listening.

“How bad?” Shiro asks before he can stop himself, heart thudding behind his ribs, almost painful. He’s leaning close enough to see where the blood’s run under the collar of his shirt, down his chest. There’s no reason for his shirt to be unbuttoned that far, Shiro thinks irrationally. No reason.

“I took care of it,” Keith says, smiling again. It’s softer though, a little slurred from how his lip’s starting to swell up.

Shiro doesn't know what to say to that. Keith is capable, and he knows this. Keith is powerful even within his circle, and he knows that. There's a difference between knowing and seeing and his worry lives in the disconnect between the two. They don’t say anything else. Shiro watches Keith watching him, almost lost in his eyes. It’s late; they’re both tired and sometimes after a long day all you want is to—

The door slams open.

Shiro springs back so he’s not half leaned on the table, Keith sliding back in his chair in the same moment with a horrid scraping screech. As far as plausible deniability goes, there is none. 

When Shiro turns, Matt’s staring at them both with a look of narrow-eyed disgust. “All done?” he says in the specific snide, sing-song voice Shiro hasn’t heard since they were in middle school together and Matt caught him eating powdered mac and cheese sauce right from the packet.

“Yeah,” Shiro tries to say, but it comes out a little strangled. He clears his throat and starts gathering the file back together, not meeting Keith’s eyes, not meeting Matt’s, trying hard to not imagine who else was watching through the one-way mirror. “All done here, for sure.”

 _For sure._ God. Matt shakes his head and walks out, not waiting for Shiro and Keith to follow.

It gets infinitely worse as soon as Shiro sees who’s standing outside the door. Matt’s standing a few feet away, arms crossed, looking for all the world like he's tattled to Mom, and next to him is Iverson. It's good Iverson only has the one eye. It's more than enough to get across his glare.

Shiro stops so fast that Keith runs into him. “Captain,” Shiro says in his best _I’m compliant and totally innocent_ voice.

“Shirogane.”

Iverson lets his name hang in mid-air while Shiro gears himself up for a public balling out. At the end of the hallway, Lance and Pidge are leaned back in their chairs, craning their necks for a better view.

Shiro might be respected, but no amount of admiration can overcome the need to gossip. Of course, they’d be the only five in the station on a Friday night. Of course, Lance would see Keith get in a street fight. Of course, _of course_ , he would bring Keith back to the station for questioning, even though that's not a thing they ever do and Lance knows it.

And of course, Iverson would stay late.

Iverson leads into it with a sigh Shiro knows is proportional to his impending humiliation. It _gusts_. “Could you possibly—and I ask this as a personal favor—keep your dates to when you’re off duty? And out of the station?”

“It wasn’t a date,” Shiro says, knee-jerk in shock because there’s a lot Iverson could say about Keith and the fact that he’s left him out entirely is admirable.

Too admirable, apparently, because Matt makes a wounded sound and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes and then says with terrible softness, “Six months, Shiro. It’s been six months. If you eyefuck him any harder you’re going to end up an unwed mother and there’s no way I’m babysitting your disgusting little mafia spawn.”

Dead silence.

It’s the bare kind that Shiro knows he’ll never forget. It’s corrosive. It settles into his gut and the walls around him and it’s going to taint every place and moment adjacent to its occurrence. Shiro feels his vision grey out for a moment. Behind him, Keith fists a hand in his uniform like he needs something to hold on to or he'll fall over.

Iverson turns to Matt slowly, terribly, expression frozen. Matt’s jerks a panicked glance at Shiro, and then Iverson, and then back, face bloodless. He owes Shiro so much. So, so much. At the end of the hallway, Lance’s chair falls backward, the sound echoing for a long moment, followed by his soft, pathetic groan.

“Dismissed.” Iverson says faintly. “Both of you. Out. Take that—” he gestures at Keith, who’s doing an admirable job of hiding his entire body behind Shiro, “—with you.”

No one moves.

“ _Now._ ”

 

* * *

 

They don’t talk until they’re outside of the station. It’s a walk of shame, but Keith wears it well—better than Shiro does, anyway. Matt leaves them on the sidewalk without a word, beelining for his car. Shiro stares after him—mostly because Keith is hard to look at directly and he doesn’t know what to say now that the worst case scenario has come to pass and left them alive and Shiro still employed, somehow.

“Need a ride?” Keith asks finally, and Shiro can tell he’s smiling by the sound of his voice. He makes himself look and even with the blood on Keith’s chin, he's beautiful. Shiro was right—he is smiling, and it's blinding. “My bike’s around the corner—but it’s not a two person. You have to hold on tight.”

He’s almost laughing by the time he gets it all out.

“It’s not funny,” Shiro mutters.

“I’ve even got a second helmet,” Keith says, ignoring him, and almost buckles over in giggles.

“Keith—” Shiro scrubs a hand over his face, trying to will away the blush.

“Six months… Shiro, _six months?”_ He does fall over this time, catching himself on Shiro’s arm. At least it’s a nice laugh.

No—a wonderful laugh, Shiro amends, but not  _that_ wonderful. He’s already suffered enough in the name of love for one day. Shiro pushes him off and heads for where Keith parked his bike that morning when he dropped Shiro off.

“Shiro!” Keith calls after him. “No one cares! Just tell them we’re dating!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come watch me fail to study for midterms on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/awahiw)!
> 
> PLEASE [VOTE HERE](https://twitter.com/awahiw/status/965404738849185792) ON THE MAC AND CHEESE DISCOURSE THIS FIC BIRTHED, YOU COWARDS. YOU SAD, SAD PEOPLE.
> 
> Now with [beautiful art :)](http://hauntedorange.tumblr.com/post/171118743444/you-know-when-youre-like-ho-ho-that-would-be-a)


	15. alternate post-trial scene (first time)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 15\. alternate post-trial scene (first time)
>
>> “Fuck it,” Shiro mutters, feeling the last, threadbare line of his control snap. In one motion, he lifts Keith onto the counter and pulls him to the edge with both hands around his thighs, trying to be careful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Shiro! 
> 
> I wanted this scene so badly. It fits right into the second chapter of [all you love, you keep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13304775/chapters/31165941). If you haven't read it all you need to know is Keith and Shiro are legally married but not together and this scene is set directly after Keith's Trial with the Blade of Marmora.
> 
> [[on tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/171386589225/i-both-love-and-love-you)]

And he's still crying. There aren't words to fix this.  
  
Shiro soaks the blood off him with a damp, warm cloth, leaving the water running hot in the sink until it fogs the mirrors, because the last thing Keith needs is the cold. It takes so long he gets lost in it: the wet slide of the cloth over muscle and skin. Down his neck, soaking away sweat, and over his spine and the blades of his shoulders, where blood pooled in the suit. And lower, soothing the welts the circuits of the suit left over his hips.  
  
Getting him to turn is a challenge. It's part stubbornness, part pain. In the end, Shiro has to pull his uninjured arm—less injured arm—off the counter and up to his own shoulder so he has something to hold on to.  
  
It's clumsy, but it works. Shiro wipes the tears off his face, and the sweat out of his hair and moves down. His shoulder is the worst part; that's what bled the most.  
  
The chain around his neck glitters beside the wound, a little mocking. You give the boy your name and take everything from him and you can't even keep him safe when you're right there watching. Shiro knew he was still wearing it, but when it's all he's wearing, it feels different. The way it lays against Keith's chest sends an unearned heat skittering up Shiro’s spine for the first time since before Kerberos, and shame close behind it.  
  
As always, Keith is a surprise. Desire was something else he thought the Galra took from him. He buries it and turns Keith back to face the sink while he bandages the wound.

When Keith is warmed and clean and pink and there's no need at all to keep going, Shiro can't make himself stop, and doesn't try. There’s something needful in it. The motions skip past anything perfunctory and right into indulgence. Touching to touch, touching to comfort and soothe the both of them, for what it’s worth.  
  
Through it all, Keith doesn't stop crying. Not sobs, but little, shuddering, watery breaths, and tears. He shouldn't have that many in him, Shiro thinks, but the terror of seeing it has worn off. The sound of it settles under his skin like an itch he can’t scratch.  
  
The day he found out he was half Galra, and fought until he dropped, and lost his team's trust, and saw his best friend walk away from him. Saw the man who hung his name around his neck walk away from him—as if Shiro could.

He can’t now. The thought of stepping away is unbearable. The cloth slips through his fingers soundlessly, and then it’s his bare hand on Keith’s hip and nothing else between them. In a trance, his metal hand comes rises to match, bracketing Keith’s waist.

Shiro’s whole mind bends around the way his hands look against small of his back next to the long indent of his spine. He could almost hold Keith’s entire waist in his hands if he tried, but there’s so much power under his fingers.

Desire spikes through him at the realization, and his skin is so soft. He rocks Keith back before he fully realizes what he's doing. Keith settles against him in a solid line, hip to shoulder. The contact breaks something in Keith. He presses back into Shiro in a way that has to hurt, but his chest is suddenly heaving under a new wave of sobs that Shiro can't understand and can't bear. He lets it go for a moment, willing himself to be something steady, to be something Keith can lean on and rely on, but the sound of him like this has been sending hairline fractures through Shiro’s composure since he stepped inside.

“Don't—"

He starts and can't finish. Don't cry. Don't sell yourself short. Don't think I would ever leave you.

His hand slides from Keith's hip to his chest, and up, until he's turning Keith's jaw, and bending. The kiss is made awkward by the angle and Keith's lips are wet with tears, but it's all he's got, and he tries to make it good. He tries to make it sure—though he isn't. He wants it and he wants Keith to feel that, but there's no guarantee it'll be wanted in return.

It can't make it worse though. If it shocks Keith out of sorrow, that's enough, he tells himself.

There's a slight inhale of breath that Shiro feels against his chest, and then Keith is turning into it. Like the first time they kissed—and the second—Keith gives it back twice over. It's desperation, Shiro realizes, and suddenly, he's not the one in control. Keith turns fully and presses in tight; Shiro’s can't keep up with the pace of it. His hands are left hovering because there's nowhere left to touch that won't be intimate in a way they can't come back from.  

Keith doesn't get that memo.

His mouth opens against Shiro’s lips and his hips jerk forward; Shiro grabs his hips, trying to hold him still, but Keith is strong and  holds his hips

“Do you want this?” Keith jerks forward at the same time he pulls Shiro in, trying to let that be his answer, but this is something Shiro needs to hear out loud. “Keith.”

Keith looks up at him, eyes rimmed in red and blue, and says in a voice that's the barest scrape of distinguishable sound, “I want you.”

He's still, still crying.

“Fuck it,” Shiro mutters, feeling the last, threadbare line of his control snap. In one motion, he lifts Keith onto the counter and pulls him to the edge with both hands around his thighs, trying to be careful—but there's no way. Keith is in pain. Every touch has the capacity to hurt. Shiro steps between his legs until they're pressed tight. Keith makes a soft, desperate sound and reaches up, wrapping his arms around Shiro’s neck, pulling him down. Even like this, Shiro is taller, but their angles still match.

He sinks into it this time, losing himself in the push-pull and the way Keith wraps a leg around his waist, urging him in.

There's a mad scramble where Shiro is trying to get his clothes off without breaking their contact, to be at least half as bare as Keith is. The vest and the skin-tight undersuit come off easy with Keith tearing at them, but the pants are a loss. He tugs them open and down, as good as it’s going to get—and he's already hard. The bare drag of skin against skin is overwhelming for a moment.

Slow, he wants, but Keith still has energy somehow and he's bending it all to this. As soon as he's exposed, Keith takes both of them in hand, and it's been so long. He hasn’t touched himself, hasn’t wanted to, hasn’t thought he would again, some days. Keith is unpracticed, but the foreign feeling of someone's hand working at him has Shiro bracing against the counter before he can protest.

He falls into it for a minute, but he won't last like that. Gently, he pulls Keith's hand away, and he doesn't have a plan yet but he doesn't want to come while Keith still needs him. That's not how this is going to go.

Keith misinterprets. “You don't want me?” he asks, but it's more a sob than a question, and Shiro is done with this. He's done feeling useless. There's salve on the counter, and it’s good enough. He lets Keith pull him into another desperate kiss as he wets his fingers and reaches down between them. Keith’s legs jerk at the contact, his hand clenching at Shiro’s shoulder. “What—”

“Do you want me to stop?” Shiro asks. It's a trick because Keith won't say no, but in the hierarchy of little sins he's committed today, it's low on the list. He circles Keith with the pad of his thumb, and Keith shakes and shakes and at least he knows it's not all in panic and sorrow this time. “Keith?”

The only answer he gets is a wet, muffled sound that takes him a moment to distinguish as, “Please,” and that's all the permission he needs.

He goes at it with care and precision. The Garrison didn't lend itself to prolonged rendezvous—speed was a necessity, but not here, not now. By the time he presses a finger inside, Keith is clinging to him with his good arm, face pressed into the bare skin of Shiro’s shoulder. Still wet, still trembling, but he's hard between them and the sounds he’s making aren’t sobs anymore.

The angle isn't ideal, but it's not about ease. “Just a bad day,” Shiro says softly, trying to make it easy,  trying to reframe it for both of them. He rubs circles into Keith's hip with his free hand, steadying him, feeling for the jump under his fingers that means he's where he wants to be.

He finds it. Keith shudders and pulls back, blinking up at him.

“Shiro?”

He sounds so vulnerable, so trusting, as if Shiro has all the answers. He doesn't, but for this he has a few. He makes it repetitive, keeps it slow, and loses track of time. It's not like he imagined it. No frenzy, nothing frantic. They're both too tired and the slow build is better. Like this, he feels useful. There are more ways to care for someone than to pick up their pieces.

When he adds a finger, Keith’s breathing gains sound and depth and Shiro’s blood soars. “Don't come,” Shiro whispers in his ear.

In response, Keith turns him for another kiss and Shiro lets it draw him in, banking the heat in them both, but making it sweeter, too. His first time, Shiro reminds himself. It's his first time, and the worst day of his life, and he deserves for this to be good. He keeps going long after they’re both ready, moving and slowing, stretching and easing until the tear tracks on Keith’s face are dry and the only sounds he's making are little keening moans as he tries to force Shiro’s fingers deeper, harder.

The position isn’t ideal, but it won't break either of them and he needs to see Keith's face when he presses inside. He pulls his fingers out;  Keith groans and grips his bicep, like he could force Shiro back inside if he wasn't half mindless in exhaustion and pleasure—and pain, Shiro reminds himself, but this is another kind of balm.

He slides Keith back to the edge of the counter and holds his hips, tight. Keith's legs are already wrapped loose around his waist and the move has him reorienting, glancing up at Shiro—

“Tell me if it's too much,” Shiro says, and releases one hip to take himself in hand, position himself in a way that can’t be mistaken. It's the first time he's touched himself all night—and longer. Much longer. He won't last, he realizes, even as Keith's eyes go wide at the contact and then flutter closed.

Keith presses down with all the leverage he has and the arm around Shiro’s neck goes tight. “I haven't—I don’t know how.” The words are rough, but it's the clearest he's spoken since Shiro walked in. There's no fear in it and only a little embarrassment.

“I know,” Shiro says, feeling his heart flip in his chest. “Do you trust me?”

Keith nods and hides his face against Shiro’s shoulder again, but—

Shiro nudges him off an inch. “Let me see you, ok?” he asks.

He doesn’t wait. He presses inside before Keith can hide again, and it's worth it for the whine and for the way his eyes shoot open, sightless, pupils blown wide.

It takes time. Shiro is big and Keith is small and these are facts he forgets when they're not pressed close, but he's reminded then. The slide is easy, but Keith is tight and this agonizingly slow back and forth is an old theme for them; he doesn't rush. Shiro moves into him with little thrusts, taking him in hand to pull more breath and sound out of him and ease them both through it.

The position lets him go deep. When he's finally seated and pressed as close as he's going to get and Keith is hanging off him more than seated on the counter is, he starts moving in earnest.

Keith gasps and digs nails into his shoulder, but he's dripping in Shiro’s hand. There's no pain in it for him, and Shiro feels the moment Keith lets go and falls into the rhythm, meeting each thrust with the best roll of his hips he can manage. It's good, but not as good as it could be, and that distinction is all that matters to him in that moment.

He wants Keith to feel this in the morning, more than the bruises or cuts or errant glares—this, and how much Shiro wants him, and how good it feels to be this close to someone.

Shiro tugs him off the counter, holding him up by what he hopes is the least-bruised portion of his thighs, lifting and lowering until his arms burn with the effort and he's right on that edge. He realizes he's talking, muttering little praises, egging Keith on—and it works. It works, at last, and better than anything else has for them in weeks. He feels Keith tense and shudder and the way he clenches around Shiro is more than enough to push him over the same brink.

He falls forward, landing Keith back on the counter unceremoniously while he braces himself against it, trying to keep his legs solid under him. Keith goes languid in his grip, legs sliding against his hips. His head falls back, hitting the fogged mirror behind him with a clunk. Shiro can see fragments of his own face reflected in the marks Keith's hair drags in the steam there.

He doesn't recognize himself. His white bangs are brushed back where Keith ran his fingers through them and Shiro can't breathe because it's hitting him in full, all at once. All those nights he spent in heat and shame on his bunk imagining Keith's legs around his waist, Keith's skin under his fingers, Keith in ecstasy—and all for him. The sounds he might make, and the way he might beg. It was a juvenile dream, embarrassing in retrospect, even then.

The real thing is better. He lets Shiro gather him up in a hug, and they come down together. He doesn't cry or moan or plead for more, but he scrapes his fingers through Shiro’s hair and presses his mouth to Shiro’s neck like blessing, like even though they're still connected he can't get close enough. It's something Shiro knows he's going to covet. In that moment, he does.

When he slides out, Keith makes a tender sound and holds tighter reflexively. Shiro carries him back to bed and lays him down and cleans him. It's different from wiping off blood and sweat and tears; a different kind of care, better in every way.

Keith watches him, half-lidded, unself-conscious, finally. He’s keeping himself awake, Shiro realizes—just long enough for Shiro to undress and clean himself and scoot in behind him, and then he takes Shiro’s hand and pulls it to the tag resting on his chest. His intention is clear, but Shiro can’t interpret what it means beyond the obvious. He presses his hand over the metal and the center of Keith’s chest where he can he feel his heart thumping steady and lets exhaustion pull them both under.

He really is the best thing Shiro has, and he's not going to lose him. Not to duty, not to the fight, and not to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come watch me shitpost about voltron season 5 on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/awahiw)!!


	16. shiro vs drunk!keith and two dads (humor + fluff + pwp)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 16\. shiro vs drunk!keith and two dads
>
>> Shiro grits out a smile and tries to extricate at least one arm from around his neck, but Keith is flexible—blessedly, beautifully flexible, a fact Shiro has thanked the universe for on many, many occasions, but not this one. He pulls an arm away, and the leg around his hip climbs higher; he shakes the leg off and gets a hand on his face.
>> 
>> “No, come on—” the hand slides to his mouth, “— _Keith_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by the lovely slouph and her drunk!keith [art](http://slouph.tumblr.com/post/171222790011/drunk-keithmore-kissy-keith-has-been) and [this](https://uravee.tumblr.com/post/171210692036/plot-twist-keiths-dads-actually-approved-of) piece by uravee!
> 
> [[on tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/171676960640/sheith-are-dorks-the-biggest-dorks-in-love)]

Keith slides into his lap, half monkey, half jello. He doesn't speak and his eyes are closed and Shiro thinks he's going to sleep when he presses his face into Shiro’s shoulder, but then he feels Keith's mouth open. Even through the thick, ribbed wool of his sweater, he can feel Keith's teeth. He likes to—nibble. They haven't talked about it. Shiro chalked it up to his Galra genes years ago and decided not to think too deeply about the fact that he's almost thirty and still waking up with hickies. If Keith wants it, Shiro wants it, but.

But.

“Hey.” Shiro jiggles his leg, trying to dislodge Keith, or at least his mouth. It doesn't work. Keith is latched on like a limpet. He refused to take off his jacket at the start of the night and now he's flushed and hot and Shiro wants to take him home and peel off his clothes and indulge in that warmth a little. Winter is good when you have someone to share it with.

The press of wet lips to his cheek takes him by surprise. Keith pulls back and kisses him again, on the chin, and once more, almost at the corner of his mouth. He's deliberately pursing his lips, making a tiny, soft sound with every press. Shiro is too surprised to be embarrassed, too deep into his second beer to not find it endearing—until he remembers they have an audience.

Over Keith's shoulder, Shiro catches two glares of equal magnitude. Keith's Dad is an enigma, but he loves Keith and Keith loves him, so Shiro wants his respect by default. Kolivan is old news, but in the same category of Respected Father Figure to the man Shiro is hoping to spend the rest of his life with. He doesn't want to mess this up, but Keith is more than half in his lap and going in for another kiss—

“Ok—” Shiro stands, taking most of Keith with him. Both glares follow.

"Where are you going?” Keith asks dizzily, one leg octopussed around Shiro’s hip. He rubs his face against Shiro’s chest and the glares aimed in their direction intensify. The only saving grace is that the rest of the gang is occupied by food two tables over. At the start of the night Keith’s Dad affectionately referred to their table as the Adults’ Table. Shiro is starting to see that for the trap it was.

Yeah. Sit with two of the most terrifying men you know, while their most cherished child has his first drink. It’ll be fun.

Shiro grits out a smile and tries to extricate at least one arm from around his neck, but Keith is flexible—blessedly, beautifully flexible, a fact Shiro has thanked the universe for on many, many occasions, but not this one. He pulls an arm away, and the leg around his hip climbs higher; he shakes the leg off and gets a hand on his face.

“No, come on—” the hand slides to his mouth, “— _Keith_.”

He pulls free and dances away from Keith’s grabby hands before he realizes the only sure way to keep them from sneaking where they shouldn’t is to physically hold them in his own. He’s left standing with Keith pressed up his front, his hands clasped around Keith’s, holding them out to the side.

Across the table, Kolivan carefully, pointedly picks up his glass and takes a sip, sharing a look with Keith’s Dad over the rim, and—no. No, no no.

“Sit,” Shiro mutters, pushing Keith back onto the bench and perching on the opposite end.

It was going so well.

This is their first winter together on Earth. It’s a new front in a dozen good ways, and he’s learned more about Keith than he thought he had left to know.

The first is that he’s perpetually cold. In space, they had armor and central heating. On Earth, his fingers and toes are icicles that seek out Shiro’s warmest bits at the cold hours of the night and _burrow_. Maybe it's a Galra thing, Shiro thinks the third night he's woken up by Keith, fresh from the bathroom. He nestles in close under their comforter, his foot slides up Shiro’s thigh leaving a trail of goosebumps behind it, and these are the little sacrifices he's prepared to make for a life together.

The second is that Keith, despite his status as an eternal popsicle and his extreme aversion to the cold, will offer Shiro his jacket at every opportunity. It doesn't matter that the red parka he lives in is two sizes too small—if Shiro shivers, Keith strips and drapes it over Shiro’s shoulders and never says a word about it or hears a word in argument. It's old-fashioned, like Keith is old-fashioned, in these few and dear ways. He opens doors for Shiro and treats Shiro to dinner and Shiro won’t be surprised if Keith tries to carry him over a puddle one day. It’s his thing, and if it’s what Keith wants, it’s what Shiro wants, always.

The third is surprising. In retrospect, Shiro doesn't know how he missed it.

Keith has never had a real drink.

Keith’s Dad and Kolivan both show up to the party. It’s their regular get together, but this time Shiro isn't the only one drinking, and it seems like a perfect time to get to know the man he’s going to be seeing at every holiday gathering for the rest of his life—and he is spending the rest of his life with Keith. That’s never in question. After years at war, after years sharing a bed and a home a life, he knows Keith better than he knows himself. Better than anyone else, for certain. There’s nothing that can break them, he’s sure.

Which is good, because the fourth thing he learns about Keith is that he's a horrid drunk. There are maudlin drunks and annoying drunks and giggly drunks and then there’s Keith, leagues and leagues beyond.

They make it through introductions and the first hour without any hiccups. Shiro hits it off with Keith’s Dad in classic fashion—Garrison gossip is like catnip, and Kolivan is an old friend—but somewhere around Keith’s third drink he starts to get affectionate. Physically affectionate. Shiro doesn’t read the hand on his thigh as out of line until it starts creeping, and that’s just the start of it. The effect grows exponentially with every subsequent drink, until Shiro has several regrets.

Across the table, Keith's Dad sets his glass down with an audible clink, and then leans back. “So, how old are you now, Shiro?”

Next to him, Kolivan cocks his head. They both know how old he is. Shiro doesn’t know why they’re asking, but he can guess. Sometimes you have to walk into the trap head first.

“Thirty, next February.” Shiro takes another sip of his beer, trying to hide his face against the glass.

“No.” Keith leans back into his space, several inches closer than he needs to be. The beer sloshes in the glass as Keith slides a hand down Shiro’s back until it's resting fondly over the hem of his sweater and the waist of his pants. “You’re not thirty,” he says, audibly holding back laughter. “Aren’t you seven?” He barely gets the words out around his giggles.

Shiro’s age is a perennial joke but Keith at least usually has enough self-control not to go for the low-hanging fruit. The looks across the table are inscrutable. Shiro gives up trying to interpret them—the human body can only allow for so much mortification at once.

“Seven and a half, sweetheart,” Shiro corrects him, trying to smile. “It’s—my birthday is on a leap year. It's a joke.” His voice sounds the way he feels: faint and pathetic.

Their expressions don’t change. “Oh. Thirty. Isn't that interesting.” Kolivan pulls off polite curiosity, but Keith's Dad isn't even trying. He doesn't break eye contact with Shiro.

“Isn't it? And how long have you two been together?”

Kolivan answers for Shiro. “Well, Keith’s trial was five years ago now, wasn't it?”

They’re tag teaming him. This is a death by small cuts. The heat from the beer is draining out of him because he's starting to see where this is going and it’s nowhere he wants to be on a Saturday night.

“We weren't together then,” Keith tells them, almost scoffing— _haven’t you heard?_ —and nails his coffin lid shut.

“Oh?” Kolivan raises an eyebrow. Just one. “But you gave up your blade for him. That's an incredible sacrifice to make for a... friend.”

It was. Shiro is intimately aware. There’s a lot Shiro would have done differently, but he doesn’t regret any of it.

“Just like his mother,” Keith's Dad says, shaking his head. “Of course, she only gave it up after we had you.”

Shiro has met Keith's mother and that was a separate crisis of epic proportions—the most beautiful person Shiro had ever seen, current company excluded. Both Keith's parents are above average. Keith is far above average. He knows this. He’s always known this. Shiro is totally out of his depth and the look on their faces says they know it and there's blood in the water.

As if to mock him, the hand low on Shiro’s back sneaks lower, inching under the hem of his shirt until it hits bare skin.

“ _Keith—_ ”

“If I could have married your mother before you were born, I would have. But I'm glad we had you, either way.” Keith’s Dad leans across the table, talking to Keith even as his eyes slide to Shiro, and there it is.

“Yes,” says. “The gift of a child is incredible.”

“Truly incredible.”

The hand Keith’s been sneaking around dips below the waist of Shiro’s pants. This is cruel; this is unfair. The thought of having kids has entered Shiro’s mind exactly once, but Keith needs time to be the most important person in someone's undivided life—at least, that's what he told himself after they visited Hunk’s extended family and had to spend two hours that night figuring out how to untangle Keith's hair post-preschool girl massacre.  “I don't think we're really ready for—”

“Oh no. Of course not.” Keith's Dad laughs to himself, and then at Kolivan, who joins in in the oddest parody of genuine humor. _Ha ha ha._ This is a concerted effort, Shiro realizes. This was planned. Shiro never had a chance. “But one day, after you two get hitched.”

“Yes. _After_ ,” says Kolivan raising his glass to tap against Keith’s Dad’s. “I for one had no notion human courtships were so... prolonged.”

A bead of sweat drips down Shiro’s temple.

“Yes,” Keith's Dad says, smiling at Shiro, all teeth. “Who knew.” He chuckles to himself. “Are you waiting for better prospects, Shiro?” It sounds like a well-natured joke, and it is a joke, but only because there’s no such thing and they all know it.

Shiro knew it years back—before Kerberos, maybe. After, certainly. That’s why there’s a ring on a chain around his neck, and one to match around Keith’s, but no one really wants to hear their only and beloved child eloped with his copilot two years into the war and didn’t invite anyone.

Or tell anyone.

Keith's gone quiet and still, leaning against Shiro’s shoulder. His breath is hot against Shiro’s neck, even through the cloth. He’s asleep, hopefully, because if he wakes up and figures out what the conversation is about, it's all over for them. Drunk Keith sticks his hands down his husband’s pants in front of his father. Drunk Keith tries to make out in a crowded restaurant. Drunk Keith has no filter, and they’ve kept this secret for years. At this point it’s a point of madness and pride. They thought about coming clean once they got back to Earth, but then Lance had joked about how long the list of invitations for their wedding would be, and no--easier to put it off.

 _We’ll tell them in a month,_ Keith said, and Shiro had nodded and smiled. And a month later, Shiro had suggested gently that they wait another two, start on a clean slate. And Keith had smiled and nodded.

It’s been six months. Just imagining the inevitable meltdown is enough to sober him up. Mutual procrastination is the worst kind.

“Yes, well. The wedding will be a delight when it comes, I’m sure,” Kolivan says.

Keith snorts awake. It's wet like a dog sneeze and Shiro wants to die. “What wedding? We’ve been—”

Shiro gently, delicately, slaps a hand over Keith's mouth. “Discussing it! We’ve been talking about it.”

Both sets of eyes narrow at them.

 

* * *

 

They make it out alive, but barely. Shiro feels shaky. One beer wasn’t enough for that much parental judgment.

The walk home is cool and quiet, which is good because it clears Shiro’s head—and bad, because it wakes up Keith in full. He's always had above-average energy and drive, but coupled with his newfound no-rules no-inhibitions attitude, it's deadly. Shiro holds his right hand so Keith only has one to cause mischief with, but it’s almost enough on its own.

They get to the house and halfway through the door before Keith makes his move. He pushes Shiro down in the hallway in a near-flip he had to have learned from the blades—that, or he stumbles. Either way, they end up in a pile on the floor and Keith takes the chance.

“Keith—”

Before he can get a word out, Keith presses a finger to his lips.  Drunk and fast. Drunk and determined. He's never getting alcohol again—not this much, at least. “Shhh. Shh, shh shh. Shhhhh,” he says, and bends, mouthing over Shiro’s collarbone. Shiro’s clothed collarbone. This is it. This is the person he's decided to spend the rest of his life with, Shiro thinks, lying spread eagle in their foyer, embracing the abyss.

Keith picks up that there's something off about trying to seduce Shiro through a double layer of wool and tries to pick his way under the sweater. It’s a lot of ineffectual pawing until Shiro decides there’s really nothing worse than drool on his favorite sweater and reaches down to pull up the hem for him. He ends up with his shirt bunched under his arms while Keith presses kisses down his chest, making ridiculous sounds as he goes.

_Mwah, mwah, mwah._

He pauses there, bracing himself on Shiro, staring down at him with a look of pure adoration. “My babies,” he says softly, and it takes Shiro a moment to realize he’s referring to Shiro’s pecs.

“I can’t believe you’re a horny drunk,” Shiro mutters into his hands.

When he’s had his fill and Shiro is breathless and hard and given up any hope of moving this somewhere more comfortable, Keith slides down to sit between Shiro’s thighs, pushing them apart wider than he really needs to for whatever he’s trying to do. The pants aren’t complex, but they’re enough to foil Keith in his current state, which is probably a good indication that he shouldn’t be getting in Shiro’s pants at all.

“No—”

Keith cuts him off because he's lost his patience with the pants entirely and gone for gold, mouthing at the inseam, sending Shiro’s blood soaring. “I just want you to feel good,” Keith mumbles against Shiro, the words vibrating through the cloth.

What Keith wants, Keith gets; it’s been years since Shiro could say no to him.

He leans back as Keith pulls him out with the same reverence he'd spent most of the night turning on his cup. “Oh,” he whispers, and presses a kiss to the head, nuzzling at Shiro. The image is ridiculous given he still has his jacket on. He looks up at Shiro and if he's trying to be coy about it, he's doing a bad job; before Shiro can call him out on it he pulls Shiro into his mouth without any preamble and takes him _deep_.

Shiro twitches hard, has to reach down and fist a hand in Keith's hair to pull him off. “You’re going to choke.”

Keith grins up at him, a line of drool running out of the corner of his mouth, and bends again, repeating the move in a way that makes Shiro’s toes curl. Horny and determined is a horrible mix.

At some point, Shiro expected sex between them to get less—everything. At the start, Keith went at him like every time was their last time and if he didn’t take as much as he could then, he’d never get another shot. After five (four and a half) years of getting it on the regular, Shiro thought he would calm down, go slow, indulge a little, and he does, but he still doesn’t know moderation. It’s a foreign concept. Clothes on in the hallway after work, or in the kitchen before breakfast--it’s never occurred to Keith that there’s a time and a place or such a thing as _enough._ He buries his fingers in Keith’s hair and tugs the way Keith likes it, almost by accident. He’s good at this. He doesn’t have to be, but he tries to be, and the effort he pours into it has been ruining Shiro’s life for years.

He whites out when he comes, feels Keith’s grip on his hips go vice-tight, holding him in place while he works him through it. Always too far.

“Keith.” It comes out wrecked; he knocks his knee against Keith’s shoulder, trying to get him to pull off. He does, and looks up at Shiro, licking his lips. There’s more than drool on them and he looks so pleased with himself, so satisfied. Of course, he swallowed.

If messy is how he wants it, that’s how they can have it. Shiro pulls him up for a kiss. He’s hot under his jacket and hot from the alcohol and Shiro can taste it on his breath—Shiro doesn’t envy him the hangover, but at least he’s enjoying himself. He reaches down, sliding his free hand down Keith’s front, under the waist of his pants--

“Did you come?” Shiro tries not to sound offended. He didn't think he was getting anything else out of Keith like this, but—he had ambitions. Keith doesn’t respond, but he nuzzles into Shiro’s neck and presses a wet kiss to his jaw and then settles against him with Shiro’s hand trapped between them in the worst place possible.

Shiro sighs, kisses the top of his head, and isn’t surprised at all when Keith starts snoring against him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come chat with me on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir)!!


	17. domestic day drunk sheith (humor)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 17\. domestic day drunk sheith
>
>> Shiro leans in across the table. “Can I tell you a secret?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> request: day drinking sheith + sheith living that sweet domestic life
> 
> I'm doing flash fic request on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com) if you have any desires! Also sorry in advance for a little influx here. I'll try to spread things out!

Shiro leans in across the table. “Can I tell you a secret?”

It’s a nice day—there’s good food, good company, sun, alcohol—and Lance isn’t sure he wants to ruin it by saying yes. He nods, anyway. There’s no refusing Shiro.

“The third kid?” Shiro says, like that’s a complete sentence and a question that makes sense. The silence stretches for a horrifying moment where Lance isn’t sure he’s going to say more. “...The third kid was an  _ accident. _ ”

In the distance, the sound of a lawnmower starts. Lance isn’t sure how to answer that. He wishes desperately that Allura were near enough he could call her over for a save or make desperate, sad eye contact. She’s nowhere in sight. “How is… How do you adopt a kid by mistake?” Shiro shrugs and puts his hands out like  _ yep, that’s just the way it is _ . That’s not an explanation. That’s not even remotely—what? “No, Shiro—what?” 

He doesn’t answer. He shrugs again and takes a drink, eyeing Lance over the rim of the glass like now they both know some great secret now. Lance wants to pull the glass out of his hands and have some because whatever it is, it’s stronger than this beer. 

In the end, it’s not Allura that saves him, but Keith. He looks like a soccer mom in the making with one kid hanging off his leg and one on his hip. A soccer mom, but with stubble and pecs and his too-short too-long hair tied back in a little bun that Shiro probably loves but Lance wants to cut off of him. 

“How many have you had?” Keith asks when he reaches the table. “You know you’re supposed to cook later, right?” 

“I can still cook.” Shiro doesn’t move. He’s staring up at Keith, a little hazy-eyed. They’re an abiding mystery. Lance doesn’t know how they went from friends to this. It feels like one day they were platonically considering living together, and the next there was—this. A ring on Keith’s finger and three kids. That’s three more than Lance has and more than he wants and he would never have pegged them for ending up here.

Keith rolls his eyes and trades the glass in Shiro’s hands for the baby. The kid is good natured. He seems used to the switch and settles into Shiro’s hands with a little, satisfied look. Babies shouldn’t look that smug. It’s wrong.

“I’ll get the food started,” Keith mutters, walking back toward the house. Lance seriously wonders if he’s forgotten there’s a gremlin on his shin at all. 

Shiro stares after him with a little dopey grin. Lance desperately hopes it’s the alcohol and not his natural state, but he knows better. The oldest kid is twelve by now and this is an old theme with them.

“Shiro, how do you adopt a kid by accident?” Lance asks again under his breath. He needs to know. It’s going to haunt him.

The baby—the third kid—is like a tiny old man. Lance has only had to babysit him once. He didn’t cry, but his expressive face was almost worse. He’s good at squinting in a way that’s somehow reminiscent of Keith’s expression right before he attempts to end Lance’s life with one bare comment. Lance lives in terror of them both.

Shiro rocks the kid back and forth aimlessly. “We were talking. One night. And it just kind of happened.”

Talking. Lance doesn’t know what that entails for them and he’s gone to great lengths to never know. He assumes they sleep in separate beds. He hopes.

“How… how is that an accident?”

Shiro doesn’t answer, but he brings the kid in and blows a rasberry in the middle of his belly. The kid doesn’t laugh but his face goes slightly more satisfied than usual. 

He doesn’t answer, but Lance thinks maybe he understands. This is typical. They moved in together after the war and it wasn’t too much of a surprise the first time they were at a Garrison event and Keith leaned over a pressed a kiss to the corner of Shiro’s mouth before he made his excuses and left. It wasn’t much a surprise when Shiro followed. The quiet marriage, the first kid—it was all very frog in a pot of boiling water for the rest of them. You watch someone bring a man back from death a couple times and nothing after is really that much of a shock. Maybe everything between them falls into the same category in Shiro’s mind: a happy accident, because there’s no way in his mind that either of them could have earned this. 

Lance wants to ask how many kids they’re going to end up with, accidentally or otherwise, but it’s not worth it. “You decided on a name yet?” he asks instead. 

Shiro’s whole face goes white.


	18. coffee shop au (humor + fluff)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 18\. coffee shop au
>
>> “You good?” Matt asks under his breath. 'Whatever you want' isn't a coffee order, but Shiro knows that.

To be fair, it’s Matt’s coffee shop. He found it first. He’d reached regular status before Shiro knew it existed. 

“You don’t even like caramel,” Matt mutters. 

Shiro doesn’t look at him but he does whisper out of the corner of his mouth, lips moving imperceptibly, “If he wants to give me caramel, I’m taking caramel. It would be rude to refuse, Matt.”

The barista is bent over the counter, focused on his work, bottle in one hand as he builds a little confection on Shiro’s coffee. If he can hear them, he doesn’t give any sign of it. His hair is tied back from his face, but a few dark locks fall over his eyes in aesthetic perfection. The worst part is that he doesn’t look like he tries. He’s one of those people that rolls out of bed looking like this. Matt doesn’t want to consider it too deeply; Shiro does enough of that for both of them.

“You could just ask him for his number.”

Shiro turns to him with a look so affronted and tired, Matt almost feels compelled to apologize. 

But not quite.

 

* * *

It starts the morning Matt offers to grab coffee for Shiro before work and Shiro offers politely to go with him because they’ve been at the office since six and it’s a nice day to stretch their legs. Later, Matt will try to pinpoint the exact moment he started to regret it.

The coffee shop in question isn’t big, but it has food and tables and a handsome following. There are flowers hanging over the door and fresh baked goods on the counter every morning. It’s Matt’s best find of the year. The coffee is inexpensive and divine, the location is convenient, and the owner and sole barista is—well. 

Shiro walks in the shop ahead of Matt and holds the door open and stops and it takes Matt a second to realize he’s not stalled looking down at his phone. He’s staring at the barista with a level of intent that’s—amusing. Cute. He can count on less than one hand the number of times in their long friendship that Shiro has been distracted in this specific way, but it makes sense if this is his type. 

Keith is long-limbed and it’s a hot day. He’s in a tank top the same dark shade as his hair, apron tied tight around his small waist. Shiro finds himself after a moment and steps forward, mouth still open one condemning centimeter as he stares.

“Morning,” Keith says in his quiet, rough voice, peeking over the top of the espresso machine at them. “What can I get you?” 

“You go first,” Matt tells Shiro, trying to be polite. He doesn’t realize it’s an act of cruelty until the words leave his mouth and Shiro’s eyes go wide. 

He shakes himself and manages a few steps but stops well short of the counter. “Just—coffee.”

“Black?” asks Keith. He sets his elbows up on the counter, leaning over it a little, eyeing Shiro. Whatever the pose does to his arms has Shiro’s gaze riveted.

“Anything,” Shiro says fainty. “Whatever you want.”

Keith’s brow cinches delicately, but he nods and rises off the counter. “Usual for you?” he asks Matt over his shoulder as he starts pulling out cups and Matt nods. The shop is mostly empty this late in the morning and they have time to take a table and look around. The decor is stark, walls covered in someone's simple sketches of a distant desert. It's a breath of fresh air when every other independent coffee house in the city is trying to out edge the others. Shiro sits down next to him, a little red around his ears but in recovery.

“You good?” Matt asks under his breath.  _ Whatever you want _ isn't a coffee order, but Shiro knows that.

Shiro shakes his head a little, chagrined. “You could have warned me,” he says, pulling out his phone.

Matt snorts. “I didn’t know you had a thing for long hair.”

“I—” Shiro takes a sharp breath. “I don’t. It’s the whole—thing.”

That’s descriptive. Matt tries not to be obvious about how amused he is while they both wait for their order. 

Keith spares them anymore shame when he walks over with their order. “White chocolate mocha with extra cinnamon,” he says setting one cup in front of Matt, unwittingly opening Matt up to weeks of ridicule about his taste in coffee, and then he turns to Shiro. “And… coffee.”

The cup he sets in front of Shiro is a creation. There's whipped cream on it for starters, and something drawn on top of it in chocolate syrup. Matt didn’t get any chocolate syrup. Matt didn’t get whipped cream, either. Not that he wanted any.

Shiro stares at it for a long, pensive moment, and then looks up at Keith with stars in his eyes. “What's this?”

Keith rolls one shoulder. “You said anything.  _ Whatever I wanted. _ Hope you don't mind the sugar. Or the—the dairy. If you don't want it, I can get another, on the house—”

“No! No, it's perfect. Thank you,” Shiro says. “Thank you so much.”

That's the moment. Right there.  _ Thank you. Thank you so much. _

When he's gone, Shiro turns the cup toward him, smiling like a loon. It's a cat—ears and paws and all. Keith made him a cat out of whipped cream. Matt looks down at his own whipped cream cat-less cup and feels oddly cheated, but watching Shiro try to figure out how to drink it without getting chocolate and cream all over his face is some comfort, at least.

On their way out the door, Shiro leaves Keith a tip in bills that aren’t ones and smiles to himself all the way back to the office. He thinks that’s it; a one-off and a funny story— _ remember the time that barista hit on you, Shiro? _ —but the next morning when he hits the shop on the way to the office, he runs into Shiro. Matt sees him toeing open the door from afar, hands full of what’s unmistakably a pastry bag and a top-less cup of coffee.

They make eye contact. Shiro closes his eyes for a moment before he pastes a smile on his face. “Hey,” he says, and then quieter, “fancy seeing you here,” as if Matt’s the inconstant variable here. 

It’s Matt’s coffee shop. Matt  _ found  _ it. 

Matt pushes past him into the shop. “You’ve got whipped cream on your face.”


	19. keith takes care of shiro (fluff + angst)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 19\. keith takes care of shiro
>
>> anonymous asked:
>> 
>> AU where Shiro is still ill but living his best life with his supportive bf Keith, who quietly gets a certificate in massage so he can treat Shiro to fine ass massages when his muscles act up on him bc Keith is really That all-in dramatic bitch

He aches in the evenings. Keith jokes it's his body feeling a storm coming because the clouds always build over the day and by afternoon it’s rare they don’t have some lightning storm or dry desert shower—but they both know his pain is something different. Shiro appreciates the little facade.

Some days are bad and some days are worse. He can tell it's gearing up to be the latter when he gets out of bed that morning and his hands are shaking with the pain spiking through his legs and back. Keith watches him from the bed but doesn't comment; when Shiro looks at him, he rolls over. Part of Shiro is always sure he's inch from losing this so he fights the shake and pretends not to limp to the bathroom.

When he got back from Kerberos, they called him a hero, but he didn't feel like one. That's not why he went. No one seemed to understand that—no one but Keith, twenty-one and grown, dressed in greys and fresh off a mission of his own. _Kept your bike from falling apart while you were gone,_ he'd laughed and pressed the keys to Shiro's palm like they didn't both know Shiro gave it to him before Kerberos, free and clear.

He'd taken the gift for what it was and he'd taken the implicit offer, too.

They had dinner on the cliffs. Keith brought whiskey and Shiro brought bad take-out and they'd stayed until sunset was long gone and the moon was high, talking quietly and then giggling in proportion to how much of the bottle they'd killed. The persistent ache in his arms and shoulders faded to the background for the first time post landing and Keith's laugh echoed in his ears for days after.

It became a little tradition and then something more, because it didn't really count as tradition if you did it every weekend and most Wednesdays. Shiro never asked him out; Keith never agreed. They kissed the first time Keith beats him across the desert, in a haze of dust and adrenaline and sun. After Keith's promotion, Shiro followed him back to his rooms and in the morning he’d woken up sated and sore in a way that had nothing to with his slowly breaking body. He’d realized by degrees whose body must be pressed against his back, but the greater realization was that he didn’t regret it.

They were together for a year before Shiro could say, _I love you_. Keith said it a hundred times before that and never asked and never seemed hurt that Shiro couldn't bring himself to admit it, too.

They fought once. It was the reverse of a hundred arguments that wore grooves in Shiro’s mind with how often he worked them over. The Garrison would keep him on in any condition, but the worse it got, the less of an asset he felt, until it culminated. The wristbands could only do so much. _Do you want to retire?_ Keith asked him, brow pinched, and Shiro had explained that wasn't the point. Keith had insisted and by the end of the night, it was a true fight.

Keith won, of course, in the end. It was one piece of an ongoing lesson: Keith always wins.

Two years in, they know each other's edges. Or—most of them. Keith is a kind of ongoing mystery at times, but Shiro's learned to live and let live. It’s not a surprise when Keith pads into the bathroom behind him and wraps him in a hug. He’s not a morning person by any means.

“Come back to bed,” he whispers.

Shiro wants to, more than anything. He aches and it’s going to be a day that tests him. But—

“Just for a minute,” Keith coaxes, drawing him back to the bed. Shiro doesn’t know how to tell him that he isn’t up for anything strenuous, but Keith pushes him down on his front instead.

“What— _oh_.” Shiro cuts off on a groan that Keith pushes out of him with his thumbs pressed high to either side of his spine.

Keith pulls back. “Does it hurt?”

Shiro shifts. It does, but in a good way. “No.”

“Good.” Keith presses a kiss to the top of his spine and follows it with his fingers, straddling his thighs to get leverage. He's unpracticed, but he's always had an odd strength to him, an odd persistence. It doesn't cure all his aches, but it helps. Keith settles next to him on the bed when he's done and pushes the hair off Shiro's face. “You can take a pill if it gets bad.”

Shiro closes his eyes, takes a breath, focuses on the light, rough press of Keith's fingers on his cheek. “Not yet.”

“Okay,” Keith says lightly. Shiro is infinitely thankful for his ability to let it drop.

 

* * *

 

Two days later, Shiro limps to their car after he gets out of a late meeting. Keith is there waiting, pointedly not watching Shiro make a spectacle of himself. He's in too much pain to care if someone sees. The ride home is quiet, but as soon as they get in the house, Keith marches him to the living room and pushes him down on the couch with an order to stay there.

He comes back with a towel and a bottle. With gentle hands he strips Shiro of all but his undershirt and briefs and starts working what must be some kind of oil into his skin. It smells like nothing, but everywhere it touches goes pleasantly warm. The pain ebbs away, leaving him languid, lying on the couch more than sitting.

When he's done, Keith sits back and admires his handiwork like Shiro is something he personally molded from clay. It's about how he feels.

“You're really getting good at that,” Shiro groans, pulling Keith up on the couch with him.

“I have to earn my keep somehow,” he jokes and smiles cryptically.

 

* * *

 

Shiro knows he's still breaking. Resignation is some kind of comfort, but not near as good as Keith’s hands. He must be getting practice—though Shiro can't imagine where—because it feels like magic. The aching numbness that follows him like a bad dream lifts slowly under his touch.

On Friday, Shiro comes home in so much pain he can’t identify what hurts most. He wants to beg Keith, but he doesn’t need to. Keith gets him on the bed and starts in without asking. Dinner can wait and part of adult privilege is knowing when an afternoon nap is in order.

Keith must go for an hour, working every inch of Shiro over from his calves to his neck and back down.

“Turn over,” Keith says when Shiro thinks he’s finished. Shiro complies, but it takes him a moment to remember how to use his arms. Keith repeats the process with a thoroughness that seems like overkill. There are a few moments where it occurs to him to tell Keith to stop for politeness’ sake, but he can't bring himself to say anything.

When he's finally done, Shiro can barely open his eyes. He hears Keith walk to the bathroom and run the faucet. When he comes back, he drapes a towel over shiro and starts wiping off the excess oil.

“You don't need to do this for me,” Shiro slurs, body heavy with sleep.

Keith snorts as he drags the warm cloth over his skin. “What makes you think I don't do this for _me_?” Shiro misses his meaning until Keith replaces the cloth with his lips and kisses his way down Shiro's chest and abs.

“I still don't think this counts as selfish,” Shiro roughs out, both hands already moving to thread through Keith's hair and cradle his head with practiced ease as the pleasure that's settled into his limbs focuses to a point.

By the time he's done, Shiro is too far gone to even pull the sheets up over his body. Keith does it for him, sliding in behind him.

“I like you like this,” Keith murmurs against his shoulder.

 _Like jelly?_ Shiro wants to ask. “How are you so good at that?” Shiro asks, and he half means the massage, but it’s more than that. He can read Shiro with a look, knows when he needs a break or needs to be left alone, knows what to say when.  He’s not perfect, but it’s enough. Shiro smiles to himself and then realizes Keith still hasn’t answered and it’s not a rhetorical silence—it’s charged.

“I took a class, actually,” he mumbles, finally.

Shiro rolls in his arms to look at him dead on. “A class in what?”

Keith looks oddly guilty. “Massage? It’s just a few hours a week. I’ll be done in spring. It was going to be a birthday present.”

Shiro can’t decide what to say and he can’t figure out why it hurts. He scoots back and sits up, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Why would you do that?”

He doesn’t answer right away. He won’t meet Shiro’s eyes. A coldness settles over the room. “Because I wanted to.” Keith has that little defiant bent to his lips, the one that’s used to be just shy of a pout before his jaw filled out. “You deserve it.”

“I don’t deserve it. You—why?” Shiro asks again helplessly, unsure if it’s anger or desperation rising in the back of his mind.

Keith closes his eyes and takes a breath. “It helps, doesn’t it?”

It does, impossibly, but Shiro can’t tell him that now or he’ll never give it up and he doesn’t want to be something that needs coddling. He doesn’t want to be a waste of Keith’s time.

Before he can say so, Keith pushes a hand through his hair and sighs. When he speaks, his voice is low and rough. “I know what this is, but there’s no rule that says it has to be hard. I want as many good days with you as I can have. I know they won't all be perfect, but—” he takes a breath and meets Shiro’s eyes, “—they’ll be good.” It's a promise. Shiro can tell by the way his voice gets low. “Let me do this. Please.”

This is a moment, he realizes. This is a fight they can have, or he can take this luck for what it is and settle down in it. Keith’s eyes are a little bright, too, even in the dark. This is hard for him, too, and it’s easy to forget that.

“Okay,” Shiro says. “But only if you want to. Promise.”

Keith huffs and tips forward, hiding his face against Shiro’s shoulder. “Promise.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A flash fic request on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com)! Feel free to come request.


	20. shiro's arm betrays him (humor)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 20\. shiro's arm betrays him
>
>> Shiro has the sense that if he moves the hand, Keith will notice. Maybe if he finds an excuse to stand or reaches for a glass of water or lifts the hand with glacial slowness, he won’t.
>>
>>> Shiro’s arm betrays him.

It happens first in a meeting. The MFE pilots are in attendance—standing against the wall behind them, forbidden seats for reasons no one has ever explained to Shiro—along with the upper brass and the Paladins, who count as some nebulous rank-between-ranks now. Shiro’s half focused on the map that Iverson is going over and half on Keith next to him. His first day back in action, and he has to spend it in a meeting. Shiro makes a mental note to take him to the new market later, show him the stand the Puigian refugees have set up, get him some of their almost-ice cream just to see his face when he tries it.

His favorite flavor is chocolate and they have something that almost tastes like it, though it’s nuttier and rich. Shiro’s been back there three times to check because it was good and because it was something to do that wasn’t work or worrying about the fact that Keith still hadn’t woken up.

He’s mid-way through his daydream, imagining the taste of the ice cream and shaping Keith’s smile around it, when he realizes something in the room has changed. Iverson is still talking, but Shiro can feel eyes on the back of his head. It’s one of the MFEs—it has to be. Shiro doesn’t turn to confirm because as soon as that realization hits, so does another and its worse, by several degrees. It takes him a moment to identify his faux pas because the new arm reads sensation different from his hand, but then it comes to him: soft cloth, heat, the distinct hardness of solid muscle.

His prosthetic hand is on Keith’s thigh.

Keith always sits next to him, by some unspoken tradition and pride. Shiro wouldn’t sit anywhere else. The prosthetic is resting there innocently, as if by accident—and it is an accident. It is, he consoles himself in that long, terrible moment.

Shiro tries as subtly as possible to glance at Keith out of the corner of his eye.

He’s not looking at Shiro. He’s focused on the meeting, for once, and Shiro gets sidetracked in a little tangent of respect and pride that Keith has grown into this: a leader looked up to by millions, a pilot unmatched. He’s become something strong and wondrous and somehow he still hasn’t noticed Shiro’s new hand is nonchalantly using his thigh as an armrest.

Shiro has the sense that if he moves the hand, Keith will notice. Maybe if he finds an excuse to stand or reaches for a glass of water or lifts the hand with glacial slowness, he won’t.

Someone clears their throat behind them, with intent. There are still eyes on his back. No—not his back, he realizes. The person behind him is staring somewhere lower. Shiro closes his eyes and commits himself to the abyss.

He tries to shift his thumb, half nervous twitch, half experiment. Keith doesn’t move. Even his eyes stay still and intent on Iverson’s presentation, as if it’s the most fascinating sight. Shiro gets bold and tries to move a little more, but it has the same non-effect. Maybe Keith is _that_ focused. Maybe Shiro’s hand is as much an afterthought for him as it is for Shiro and it’s not a big deal after all.

“E _hem,_ ” the person behind them says aloud. It’s not even a throat-clear—and it’s a man’s voice. It’s Griffin. It has to be Griffin.

Shiro ignores it even as his face heats. If he can lift his hand off all at once, as one entity, slow and steady, Keith will not notice. He’s sure.

He steadies himself like he’s getting ready for a bad-weather take off, breathes, breathes again, and starts to lift his hand—

At the exact moment Keith shifts his body. He sighs, moves a little, settles deeper in his seat, and Shiro’s hand ends up mid-hover mid-caress over his upper thigh. Even with the long uniform jacket as a buffer, the position is several inches past appropriate.

This is second base, Shiro realizes. This is is second, sliding into third.

No—it’s only third if it’s on purpose. Intent is half the crime.

Behind him, Griffin makes a soft, affronted sound, almost like he’s been punched lightly in the solar plexus. Relatable, Shiro thinks as all the blood in his body is torn between rushing to his face and elsewhere. That’s not a new development, but it’s one Shiro’s been trying to ignore since Keith stepped out of an Altean pod with pecs and hair past his shoulders and legs for days.

Keith stays cool and collected, utterly disinterested in anything that isn’t the map at the front of the room. It can’t be that fascinating. It’s not—it’s Iverson and a laser pointer and statistics on resistance group organizational structure and Keith is the only human on Earth that wouldn’t notice a hand on their upper-upper-thigh. In all human history, he’s the first and last. Thank god for little mercies, Shiro thinks.

He somehow manages to hold himself in perfect stillness until the end of the meeting. It is, in his vast experience, the longest meeting of his life. In years of Galaxy Garrison minutiae and having to make nice with all the Voltron Coalition’s disparate planets and peoples, nothing can stand testament to it. Later, it’ll occur to him that it all might have been saved if he’d moved his hand at first notice, if he’d said a quiet apology, laughed a little laugh to downplay it, but in that moment he’s frozen and bound.

When the meeting ends—finally, blessedly ends—Keith stands and Shiro’s hand falls away naturally, without pomp or circumstance.

Shiro gets just one moment to breathe before Keith turns to him and says softly, “It’s okay if your hand gets cold sometimes, Shiro,” before he walks out of the room.


	21. sheith. as cheetos. (crack)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 21\. sheith. as cheetos.
>
>> Chiro stares at Cheith across the bag. They’ve shared the same space for weeks now–maybe months. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah! yeah it's sheith as cheetos. keep walkin. based on [this art](http://spiftynifty.tumblr.com/post/177322349738/weve-had-mermen-and-shrimp-and-werewolves-and).

Chiro stares at Cheith across the bag. They’ve shared the same space for weeks now–maybe months. It’s hard to keep track. They’ve been jostled once, almost close enough to touch, but not quite. Instead, they settle for small talk about the weather (temperature) and the hints of light and sound they get through the bag. Chiro imagines they’re sitting on a shelf in some small-town gas station, and frankly it’s not a bad life.

Cheith’s favorite pastime is listening to people talk. He prefers the corner of the bag, though he’s only been there once, and he enjoys that Chiro has excess cheese dust on him. Chiro memorizes these facts and holds them close. One day, he tells himself. One day. 

That day comes sooner than they think. The rush of sound as the bag is picked up, the play of light across the cellophane–and across Cheith’s edges–almost takes him by surprise, but it’s been a long time coming. He doesn’t mind. He’s had time to memorize all the parts of Cheith he wants to keep. 

A few hours later, they’re unceremoniously dumped in a bowl and left out on a table. Chiro should be sad, but he’s closer to Cheith than ever, so it’s hard to be morose. It would take so little for them to touch.

As soon as he thinks it, a hand reaches in and in the process, they’re moved together. The touch of Cheith’s gentle cheeto lips upon Chiro’s cheeto cheek is all he’s ever wanted. “Stay with me,” Cheith says softly.

Chiro wishes he could.

Evidently, they’ve been left out for a party because it’s several hours before anything else changes. They’re carried to a well-lit room and Chiro half registers it with Cheith’s cheeto lips still against the edge of his cheeto cheek.

“Hey dude,” someone says, “doesn’t it look like those two are kissing?”

Chiro can’t see who’s talking. It takes a moment for the person’s companion to respond. “Dude… you’re not this high. What the fuck.”

“No, I’m just–okay, look, doesn’t that look like a face?”

“No.”

“Fuck you. They’re in love.”

A gentle hand plucks him from the bowl and before he can mourn his parting, it picks up Cheith, too. They’re placed upon a shelf high above the world, leaning against a picture from someone’s wedding. It’s oddly appropriate. Even if we have this moment and nothing else, Chiro thinks, it’ll be enough.

The hand positions him until he’s leaning against Cheith, touching enough to hold each other up. 

“There,” the voice says.

“You’re fucking nuts,” his friend mutters. 

Chiro half registers them, too overwhelmed. Cheith tilts enough to push his cheeto face into Chiro’s cheeto neck. The action tilts them over entirely until Cheith is lying on top of him, still gentle. 

“Great, now it looks like they’re fucking,” the voice says.

“Well. That’s because they’re spicy,” says their savior and there they rest for all their years, happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> never fucking test me again
> 
> [[on tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/177324552210/wait-so-when-cheith-does-the-dirty-does-that-make)]
> 
> now with additional art...
> 
> [cheith saves chiro's life](http://spiftynifty.tumblr.com/post/177328200518/licking-all-the-cheese-off-of-chiro-is-like) and [chiro's magnificent cheeto abs](http://spiftynifty.tumblr.com/post/177323498623/dont-worry-guys-cheero-is-still-hot-in-the-cheith) by spiftynifty  
> [nsfw spicy cheith](https://twitter.com/bakingpancakes/status/1032834131929878528) by weeping-j  
> [cheith in love](https://twitter.com/Crimson_Poison/status/1032819497932087296) by togeko  
> [cheith but like if shiro was an oreo instead](https://twitter.com/0reocookies/status/1032833242314027008) by 0recookies


	22. keith loses himself in a fight (angst)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 22\. keith loses himself in a fight.
>
>> “You’re okay,” the voice whispers against his ear. He doesn’t want to fight it, but his body is still stuck in blood and fury and his claws must bite where they’re pressed to skin, trying to fight the hold.

The fight takes too much out of him. 

He brings the blade down in a low arc, makes it a feint when the druid’s edges start to flicker and switches the Bayard to his left hand by willing it there. The next strike catches cloth and something that might be flesh, but then there's a crack of power somewhere over his shoulder. The druid isn't alone—they've been playing it safe, hiding, waiting for him to tire out. 

And he is tired. The fight’s been going for minutes longer than he planned it to and the hunt wore him out all by itself. He’s panting with the effort of staying in it, hyper-focused. The light is too bright, his arms are burning, and he can’t lose. Anger makes him clumsy, but it gives him power, too. Their threats still echo in his mind.  _ He’s still ours,  _ the druid said and he was wrong. Shiro hasn’t been theirs for years. 

Haggar is dead. These druids are the last remnants of a broken empire and what they did to the Blades, what they want to do to Shiro, is written in blood in Keith’s mind—carved there, inescapably, making his breath run hotter and hotter with every moment they fight. Now there are three of them and he’s almost overwhelmed, but he can’t be. He’s beat the odds so often on that one unavoidable fact: he can’t be beat. The people he loves are depending on him.

Shiro should be safe on the Atlas half a galaxy away, but the threat that they’ll hurt him is blinding him to that logic.  _ He’s safe, _ he tells himself, but at that moment the druid behind him makes his move and strikes. He can’t dodge the blow if he wants to attack and he wants to kill while he has an opening. 

He rolls, switches hands again, and strikes for the kill. 

It hits at the same moment a pain like fire strikes up his back. It’s not an open, physical wound, but it brings him to his knees in the sand and dust of the rundown city he tracked them to. It’s this last group, this last holdout faction. He could take them out on a whim, he thought. 

He didn’t tell Shiro where he was going. There’s still a haunted look he gets about him when Haggar and her ilk are mentioned, and Keith would do almost anything to spare him that. No—anything. At this moment, he would do anything. 

The scream he makes takes a moment to register in his own ears because it’s so divorced from anything human. Shiro likes when he’s human. Shiro likes his quiet, soft moments—and this isn’t one. Claws bite into the handle of his sword giving him extra grip, the same claws the druids have, and he knows if he looked in a mirror he would see the same face he’s driven a sword through a hundred times: yellow eyed, sharp toothed, utterly alien. 

Shiro would hate it. He’s only seen it once and Keith doesn’t know if he remembers that.  _ That’s the Keith I remember. _ It shook him out of it because it wasn’t. For Shiro, he’s always been his best self and this isn’t a version of him Shiro would be proud of.

When he kills the druid, it’s almost by accident. The blade goes through the cloak like butter and when it hits flesh, too, he’s almost surprised. He brings the Bayard up on a whim and forgets he’s moving at double speed; the druid flies right into it. He still has to worry about the two behind him, though. He spins, runs forward until he can spin again and put the stone wall at his back. It’s not a defense. They can move through steel and rock, move through space like nothing else exists and they are its sole masters. He banks on that. 

Like clockwork, he only has to wait a moment before the two figures dissolve and the rush of power behind him is unmistakable. He feels it echo through the ground and through his armor and swings his blade before they have a chance to strike. In a stroke of rare luck, both go down—but only one stays there.

The other druid—the last druid—fades to the air around him. Always fading, always running, harder to catch than a feather in the breeze. It's not getting away, though.

_ Breathe, _ he tells himself. He needs to breathe. His slit eyes are working on overtime and it’s like looking through a telescope to fight. He can see every thread of the fallen druid’s cloth cloak, the wrinkled skin of its hand, the almost scaled texture of its neck below the mask. An almost animal compulsion overtakes him: he wants to drive the blade into it again. 

He loses himself for that one moment. 

Pain rips up his side without warning, but it’s old news. He screams and turns and he’s moving too fast now to be dodged; the Bayard doesn't cut so much as tear and there's blood this time. He didn't know they could bleed. The druid goes down in a hiss of power and screams like a dying star. Its last strike was solid, though—it burns across the mesh of his waist and through it. When he looks down, his eyes focus in on the violet light of the wound across his abdomen. It’ll spread and fester, but it was worth it. All of this was worth it.

Shiro is safe and nothing else matters. Keith almost falls to his knees, but it's only a stumble. He forces himself to stay standing.

He can’t summon the lion like this. His hands aren’t clawed anymore—they’re worse. His skin looks hazed with shadow and he can feel long hair dusting down his back, brushing his bare skin where the druid cut through his armor. If Shiro could see him now, he thinks and despairs. 

The wall he finds to lean against is cool. The only sounds in the room is his own hard breathing and the occasional sound of shifting stone and dust as it settles around him and the dead. Time becomes an indistinguishable thing. Maybe he is wounded. There’s wetness on his chin that’s either from a wound on his forehead or his own teeth biting into his lip. 

The latter, he realizes when he licks them and tastes metal and salt.

“Oh, Keith.” 

The voice comes to him distantly, after minutes in the dark. He’s cold, but only because his skin his hot to touch where his hand is gripping his own shoulder at the break in his armor.  _ Oh, Keith. _

“Get back,” Keith hears himself say to the nothing. The arms on his elbows are a surprise he doesn’t have the energy to respond to, but he tries, lashing out with one hand. It finds purchase, but the body doesn't move away. A grip like steel folds over his fingers where they're buried in cloth and skin and then there’s a body pressed against his from hip to shoulder and arms around him.

He blinks and tries to see but his eyes sting with sweat and blood and it's either too dark or too bright.

“You’re okay,” the voice whispers against his ear. He doesn’t want to fight it, but his body is still stuck in blood and fury and his claws must bite where they’re pressed to skin, trying to fight the hold. “Come back to me,” it says after a moment.

Keith doesn’t know what it means. He’s right there, open and naked as a nerve exposed by the cut of a blade. That’s exactly what he is. 

“Come back,” it repeats. “You’re fine.”

He’s not, though. There’s a cool touch over the wound around his waist, soothing, but the mark still burns. “They were going to hurt you,” Keith hears himself say like he’s begging for clemency. His voice is so rough it hurts to try to speak. “I just—”

“I know.”

The body against him shifts and then there’s a touch over the soft skin at the back of his knees. The armor doesn’t cover it right; it’s a weakness he’s always protected, but now he’s grateful for the skin-on-skin contact as he’s lifted into someone’s arms. Skin on skin—no. There should be something between them, still. The druid tried to cut him there, but the hit wasn’t deep enough. It only caught mesh. He’s not bleeding, but his skin still burns.

An arm cradles his waist while a hand moves to trace his face. His first instinct is to bite, but the touch is soft. The arms rock him back and forth like a child, shushing him softly. The sub-vocal rumble running through the back of his mind is coming from his own chest, he realizes.

He hears another voice, more distant: “Is he injured?”

“Not bad,” says the voice he’s keyed to trust and treasure and he's starting to come down. He heaves against the arms holding him fast once more, a reflex more than anything. “I’ve only seen him like this once before, though.”

“He’ll change back with time.” 

“I don’t mind it.” That voice is so perfect, so calm. A gloved hand pushes the hair off his forehead where sweat has stuck it there. “He’s—handsome this way.”

“He needs to learn to hold himself back.”

The chest he’s curled against rumbles with a laugh, but it's off. It's not the laugh Keith likes. “That’s not him.” He’s repositioned, lifted until he’s close enough that the words brush against his sweat soaked skin. 

He tries to speak, but the words come out garbled. “...’M fine,” he hears himself say. 

“You’re fine?” Shiro asks. That's who it is. Shiro. “You didn’t say where you were going. We were worried.” A thumb brushes over Keith’s lips, parts them and runs over his teeth where they’ve gone over-long and sensitive. Keith feels it, even half-awake. His gaze isn't clear yet; it's still limned in light, too hazed with pain. He can only make out the edges of Shiro's face and pale hair. “You did good,” he says, and: “I’ve got you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[on tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/177380228345/flash-fic-request-keith-gets-overwhelmed-in-a)] [[on twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir/status/1033398350412800000)]
> 
> I'm having trouble replying to comments in a timely manner, so please know I read them all and really appreciate them! Thank you so much!!


	23. keith leaving earth + "i love you" (angst)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 23\. keith leaving earth + "i love you"
>
>> Keith stills at last and looks at Shiro. “I don’t… I don’t think I’m coming back.”

“Where are you going?”

Keith doesn't look up from where he's gathering papers at his desk. He takes a breath, but his response takes another moment still, and when it comes it's quiet like he's scared they'll be overheard, though it's after-hours and everyone else is long since gone to dinner or home. “I don’t know. Away.”

_Why_ would be a better question, but Shiro’s felt it for weeks now, maybe months—a quiet discontent Keith would never voice.

“How long will you be gone?” The question comes out too clinical, too disinterested. It’s a CO’s question, but Shiro hasn’t been that for him in years. He wonders if Keith knows that. He wonders if Keith knows that he could fight him on any point, ask for the moon and stars, and Shiro would crumble for him. It’s not Keith’s greatest power, but it’s one only he has.

Keith stills at last and looks at Shiro. “I don’t… I don’t think I’m coming back.”

Earth isn’t a home for him. He was born for the stars; Shiro thought it the first day they met and more days than not since have been a long trial by fire and blood that’s proved it true in the way of laws and equations—there’s no negotiation on it. Tying him to Earth was never an option. Shiro considered it in those first days, after he caught Keith out on the roof, staring at the night sky like it still had something to show him. 

He thought of giving Keith a job he couldn’t walk away from, telling him to stay, or asking for something more. Something permanent, something personal. It wasn't his place, then, and it still isn't. The slow burn he thought he had is going out like a star. No quiet love, no house and a yard and years to settle into each other. This is it.  

“Can you wait a day?” Shiro asks. Keith doesn’t answer, doesn’t move. The sun coming in the windows is his color—red, always. The angle highlights his cheek bones and the hollow of his neck, the shadows making him look older than he is in Shiro’s mind. “I need to say a proper goodbye.”

The paper under Keith’s hand crumples as his fist goes tight. When he speaks, his voice is shaking. “Can’t you say goodbye now?” 

He never used to be so bold. It was fear, Shiro realizes now. He was always scared to do wrong, speak wrong, disappoint, like Shiro’s regard for him was made of smoke and might dissipate at the slightest move. He’s grown into himself now.

“No. I need a day to submit my resignation.”

“You—” Keith jerks up from where he’s started to hunch over his desk, eyes wide and latched to Shiro. “What are you talking about?”

He’s not stupid. There’s hope in the question—the barest thread of it. Shiro smiles at him and tries to make it easy, tries to make it casual and small and not the promise it is.

“You have room for one more, right?”

Shiro can’t interpret the look on his face. It’s in the no man’s land between disbelief and a nameless emotion he’s only ever seen on Keith’s face—the look he gets when Shiro gives him something he doesn’t think he deserves and he wants it as much as he wants to say no. “Shiro—” 

“Please?” He’s not above begging, he realizes. And the moment he does, he realizes something else, too—he’s going with Keith. There are so many mistaken notions about him, but first among them is that he’s anything but selfish. He’ll do whatever he has to to keep this one thing. If Keith leaves, he’ll follow. He’ll chase. He’ll plead and cheat and even if after all of it Keith says no, he’ll stay. There’s no other path. Age has started to catch up with him in every way but physical. Whatever the Galra did to him, whatever the Galra blood in Keith means for him, they both stay young while their hearts get old. The longer it goes, the more Shiro wants somewhere to settle down.

It’s not Earth. 

“You can’t leave. They need you here. Why would you want to?” Keith’s voice is low.

“Because we’re family.” 

Keith puts his head down, half turns from the window so he's in shadow and Shiro can't see his eyes. It’s a calculated risk Shiro's taken. “Everyone’s— _ family _ .”

“No. Not like that.” He drops his voice, takes a step closer, not because he’s scared anyone will hear but because this is just for them. This is just for Keith. “I love you.” He’s been waiting years to say it, for the right moment, the right place, and this is his best card to play. All this time he’s loved and been loved, but the saying of it is something different and deeper and he’s bided his time for the right second to let the words loose where they’ll do the most good. “Keith.”

He reaches out like he’s going to lay his hand on Keith’s shoulder and uses Keith’s unwitting familiarity as a boon and goes for something else, cupping Keith’s cheek with his hand instead, right over the scar, skin against skin. 

Keith’s eyes stay downcast and dark. “You don’t mean that.”

Shiro laces his fingers around the back of Keith’s neck, takes his other hand with the metal one. The sun is going down in earnest and now the blue of his arm is a second layer of light, different from the red, brighter. “I do, too.” Shiro pulls him in until Keith gives up and lets their heads knock together, temple to temple. “I’m tired of work,” he half confesses, half lies, the tightness in the pitch of his voice the only sign of either, and he hopes Keith won't be able to tell which. 

He's not tired of it. Action is half of who he is. For years it was fighting and then it was saving and building and now he sees something new on the horizon, something better. Keith is warm against his cheek. The last time he felt another human's heat against him was—Keith, holding him.

He laces their fingers, pulls him in tight, tries to convey without words what he's been trying to realize himself for months and years. This can be more.

“It'll be too boring,” Keith murmurs. 

“I like boring. Boring is fun.”

“Boring isn't fun. You hate meetings.”

Shiro laughs despite himself and the bit of wetness he can feel against his cheek that isn't his. “Your kind of boring is fun.” 

“My kind of boring…” Keith sniffs and brings his free hand up to wipe his eyes. “You're crazy. I don’t even know where I’m going.”

“We can decide when we get there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[on tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/177452179025/protective-shiro-after-keith-pulls-another-heroic)] [[on twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir/status/1034125182460280832)]  
> I'm having trouble replying to comments in a timely manner, so please know I read them all and really appreciate them! Thank you so much!!
> 
> [there's also an amazing piece of art](http://counterorbit.tumblr.com/post/177465736065/082718-he-reaches-out-like-hes-going-to-lay-his) based on this drabble by counterorbit


	24. shiro is too into pokemon go (humor)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 24\. keith learns something unsettling about shiro's pokemon habit
>
>> “You... named a pokeman after me?”
>> 
>> “...Pokemon. And yeah.” His ears are red.

“Oh! I don’t have that one,” Shiro hums at his screen, tapping away. It's worth it for the way he bites his tongue while he concentrates. That’s what Keith tells himself.

There are better ways to spend a Saturday afternoon. Keith's been tallying them up for the last hour. They could go to the movies—something with explosions and fast cars, and maybe Shiro would hold hands or lean on Keith's shoulder and Keith could wrap an arm around him just so. They could get lunch at the cafe on the corner. They could go to the gym, reserve a mat for a rousing sparring session—or better yet, stay home and have it out on the living room floor in where they’d have a little more privacy if things escalated.

The original appeal of following Shiro around on this adventure was specific and meager and in retrospect, Keith is a fool. Shiro in a tank top and shorts in the heat and sun and late summer air… He has a tan now, won from days in their yard and the nice lounge chairs Keith thought were ridiculous when Lance insisted no home was complete without them, but he was right, for once. Spending the day with Shiro spread out in the yard eating and drinking away their rare days off is what life is made of.

“Oh! I got him,” Shiro mutters. He’s gotten all of them so far. He’s good at it. Keith’s self-assigned job is to protect Shiro from onlookers.

A woman with a stroller eyes them both as she runs by and Keith narrows his eyes as he walks over to Shiro, peering over his shoulder to see what he's caught.

It looks like a tiny, angry devil Pikachu. Pikachu is the only one Keith knows—they’re all variations on a theme. “He's cool,” Keith offers. “What is he?” He leans into Shiro’s back and settles his chin there, close enough to kiss his neck—if they weren't in the middle of a city park.

Shiro shoots into an explanation of the type and weaknesses and rarity and how it fights and where it’s caught. Around the point he starts explaining which version of the original game he's found it, Keith feels his eyes getting heavy. It's nice to listen to him talk, and the heat is cloying.

“What should I name him?” Shiro asks, nudging him a little.

Keith stifles his yawn. “Isn't the default name good enough?”

He can almost hear Shiro's eye roll. “I always name them.” He angles the phone away from Keith for a moment and then shows him the screen, shadowing it with the prosthetic. His own name is staring up at him.

“You... named a pokeman after me?”

“...Poke _mon._ And yeah.” His ears are red.

“It's a…” It has ears and a bushy tail—bunny ears, too. Maybe Shiro is into that, Keith wonders, filing it away for any future moments of desperation.

“He’s a Flareon,” Shiro informs him. “He was my first one,” his voice drips pride, “and this is Kosmo.” He flips to a thing that looks to be part tiger and part wolf, in a similar vein to the rabbit-cat thing, what with the fur.

“You really named them after us?”

Shiro snakes an arm around his hip. “Of course.”

Keith returns the gesture out of habit, but slips his hand into the pocket on Shiro’s terrible color-block board shorts—the ones Keith has tried to subtly edge toward the giveaway box in the garage a half dozen times to no avail. _I found these in the garage again. Weird._

_Yeah. Weird._

“I guess that’s pretty cool.” He tries to be subtle about copping a handful. Shiro twitches in surprise, but doesn’t move away. “Do we win?” Keith asks him.

Shiro’s ears are red. “All the time.” He’s still flipping through his list and Keith has been paying more attention to the weight and heat of his arm where it’s stuck to Keith’s back, but once he starts paying attention, past the glare of sun on the screen, there’s an undeniable pattern.

Keith grabs the phone out of his hand and scrambles out of his grip. Shiro makes a quick grab, but Keith dodges, eyes glued to the phone, because they can’t all be named—

_Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith..._

“Shiro…” With the prosthetic, Shiro could easily grab the phone out of his hand, but when Keith turns back to him, he’s still standing there, expression resigned and maybe a bit defiant. “...Did you name them all Keith?”

He shuffles. “No. Not _all_ of them.”

Keith holds up the phone, as if Shiro can read it from that distance, and scrolls for him. It’s Keith. They’re all Keith. The little dog is Keith. The big flaming bird is Keith. The—Keith has to do a double take because it looks like a little man wearing a jelly fish for a hat, with what might be an egg stuck to his chest. And of course, it’s Keith, too.

Shiro looks away. “There’s a Lance. And a Pidge.”

“How many Lances and Pidges?” Keith already knows the answer. Shiro doesn’t do him the dignity of replying. Keith traces his face as the reality of the situation cements in his mind: the man he’s going to marry, the love of his life, his best friend, has spent their summer playing Pokemon Go roughly three hours a day—averaged—and this is what he's been playing with. “You—” Keith can’t form words. “You just—All of them? Really, Shiro?”

“It’s lucky,” Shiro says as if it’s an admission of guilt.

Oh. _Oh._

Keith looks down, grass filling his vision as he fights a nonsense smile. “Naming them after me is good luck?”

“Well… yeah.”

Keith tries to think of a proper response and can’t. He hands Shiro his phone back, mollified.

“Are you sure you’re not mad?” Shiro asks. “It’s a little weird, I guess—”

“No, it’s not.” Keith wraps him in a one-armed hug. “I’ll keep you safe.” He gets bold and leans up to press a kiss to his cheek, onlookers be damned.

Shiro doesn’t look at him, but he’s blushing. “...You keep the fountain by the library safe, but yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> keith lying awake at 3am: does... does he think about pokemon when we... 
> 
> come hang with me on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir/) for really bad memes and headcanons <33


	25. galra!keith nsfw (pwp)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 25\. galra!keith nsfw aftermath of [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11814264/chapters/36824127) fight
>
>> Shiro’s hand moves lower. Keith can’t hold back the little cry that wants to crawl up his throat. Not human—not at all.
>> 
>> “Shiro,” he growls in warning. Keying him up will prolong the change. It’s come out in bed once or twice, but never like this, never with him more animal than human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: at one point in this fic keith tells shiro to wait and no because he doesn't want shiro to see his fursona and the point of the fic is literally that they love each other to bits and shiro likes him all the ways he comes and wants to prove that to keith. both characters are dtf and express this repeatedly except for the parts where keith is nonverbal bc he's enjoying it too much though... this is keith pov so like... hopefully that's all implicit and explicit. it's like... a little rough? someone gets scratched and bit by accident and someone pulls hair but none of it is remotely violent. both are super into it the whole time.
> 
> i was asked to warn for this. no, i am not tagging it noncon.

Keith falls asleep with Shiro’s scent in his nose and Shiro’s hands on his face and thighs. When he wakes up, it’s to Shiro’s breath in his hair and Shiro’s body pressed on and over his.

They're in the Lion. Keith can sense it more than see it; the here's a bed set up in the cargo bay, only big enough for one, but Shiro and he are used to making it work. Piece by piece he comes back to himself. Shiro's hand is low over his waist, sliding back and forth over the heated skin there, trying to comfort.

“Your hair got long,” Shiro whispers when Keith groans at the contact.

He's undressed, he realizes. And Shiro is right—his hair is long enough that he can feel it between his shoulder blades.

Keith wants him to see none of this, but it's tacit confirmation of what he feared: he's still changed. He pushes his face into the pillow they share and tries to tell what parts of him still hurt. Most of him. His lips are sore; they feel stretched over his teeth. “Shiro,” he tries to say, but it’s like talking around gravel.

Shiro’s hand moves lower. Keith can’t hold back the little cry that wants to crawl up his throat. Not human—not at all.

“Shiro,” he growls in warning. Keying him up will prolong the change. It’s come out in bed once or twice, but never like this, never with him more animal than human. “Wait—”

Shiro doesn’t stop. His hand moves between Keith’s thighs, teasing the soft inner skin there. He noses against Keith’s hair and then presses his lips to Keith’s ear. “You think I'm not, but I'm selfish. I've always been selfish, Keith.” Keith can only pick up the thread of the conversation in frayed strands. He needs this more than he’s needed anything he can remember. If he turns in Shiro’s grip, he can take it, but he’s stuck between desire and a low-grade terror so pervasive he thinks he might be sick.

“No, you're not.”

Shiro sighs and takes him in hand fully. He has to reposition himself closer so he's holding Keith to himself by sheer mass. Another little pleased sound works its way up Keith's throat against his will. He's losing himself, breath by breath. Shiro has barely touched him, but his body knows Shiro as well as his heart does. It's second nature.

And he wants. Always, he wants, but now it's fierce. The wound on his side is bandaged and healing, his bruises have been rubbed with something that cools and soothes his aches. His mouth still tangs with blood. He's fought something and won, and he can barely recall the beats of that fight, but the adrenaline of it is still a close memory and the only thought that comes through clear is: he’s earned this.

“Fuck,” he hears himself moan in a voice he's never used before, half-curse and half-plea. Once the words start, they tumble out of him. _Please_ and _don’t stop_ and every little thing his hindbrain can think of to urge Shiro inside him faster. Shiro's draws in a breath and his aimless touch stutters before it falls away. Keith keens. They're a mess because all he can think about is how much he wants it and how terrified he is Shiro will give it to him and see what he is.

Shiro curses. Keith pushes his face deeper into the pillow and stutters his hips back, asking the only way he can. This position keeps him covered, keeps him hidden and secret as Shiro presses wet fingers into him without warning. “Okay, okay,” Shiro mutters. “Impatient.”

“Shiro—” He doesn’t know what he’s whining for. The stretch is too fast and just right because he always likes it when it hurts a little and this is more than that. His body skips the pain and tells him he deserves it—to be wanted this much, to be taken like this. He jerks into the touch and realizes in the slide that he’s already damping the sheets.

Shiro twitches and jerks up. “Are you good?” he asks. “I can go slower—”

Keith cuts him off with a growl that shocks him and slaps a hand back until he has a grip on Shiro’s wrist, as if he could force him into doing anything. The angle is bad and he doesn’t have leverage, but Shiro huffs and crooks his fingers the way he knows Keith likes, humoring him, and then bowing over his back to kiss the top of his spine.

His hair is in the way. It’s a little crime—he tries to arch into the kiss, tries to force it to be something else he can’t define past the haze as Shiro’s fingers move in him and against him. It’s not enough. His touch is teasing and faint.

“Hey, Keith, babe. Let go.”

He thinks it’s a metaphor and another growl starts in his chest to show how little patience he has for that here and now when he’s hurting and wrecked and doesn’t have enough energy to stop himself from wanting, but then he realizes it’s not—his hand is clenched around Shiro’s wrist to the point that it must be painful.

When he pulls it away, his fingers ache. He blinks away the sweat stinging his eyes and sees his fingertips—his claws—are spotted with blood. Shiro’s blood is on his hands and he can’t gather himself enough to even be horrified or scared or apologetic, so he pushes his face into the pillow and tries to stop the sound that’s crawling up his throat. It’s a keening whine, need and apology in one.

Shiro rises and smooths the metal hand over his back. “It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt.”

Keith is done with this. “Please, just—” he cuts himself off because his teeth are sharper now and it's too hard to speak past them. The corners of his eyes sting with frustration. He heaves his body, arching against Shiro, lifting them both to feel the way Shiro's body spans him.

The hand inside him could finish him with another minute. It’s not how he wants it, but he wants this to be over, too. He wants to be back in his own skin and then he’ll deal with the regret of this and the shame of it.

Shiro pulls away. The loss makes Keith keen and writhe. As soon as it’s gone, the solid metal of his right hand is back, splayed over Keith’s spine.  “Let me see your face.” Keith shakes his head and Shiro—Shiro laughs. “Keith. Come on.”

When Keith doesn't respond he slides his hand up and digs his fingers into Keith's hair and grips to turn him, pulling his head back in an arch that's almost painful but sweet, too—and then, without warning, he starts pressing inside.

Keith didn’t notice he was ready. He didn’t read the change in Shiro's breath or catch the moment he pulled away to slick himself up, but he’s right there all at once and the stretch is sweeter than his fingers were and harder, past the edge of painful. With the hand in his hair holding him in place, the best he can do is close his eyes and bring a hand to his mouth to hide the new cut of his teeth. Keith sobs against his fingers, trying to muffle the odd sound of it, the way his voice is too deep and rough even wordless in need.

“Good?” Shiro's voice is strained. Keith is too far gone to tell if it's genuine or teasing. Shiro answers his own question with a moan and a shallow thrust, as if he can't help himself.

The hand in his hair is still tight. He can see Shiro at the corner of his eye. He’s watching Keith, intent. His pale bangs are hanging in front his face, sweat on his brow. Keith has only seen himself like this once and not on purpose. He caught his reflection on the visor of his helmet after a fight, yellow-eyed and sharp-toothed and inhuman, but he wasn’t this far gone then. This is different. This is something he wanted Shiro to never see because he doesn’t understand it himself and it seems wrong. There’s a mistake in his blood and biology that he can’t contain this—that he can change like this at all is too much.

Keith closes his eyes to at least hide the shade of them, but Shiro tugs his hair again as he seats himself fully. He changes their positions, shifting until Keith is almost seated in his lap. The position is familiar. Keith loves it this way, loves how deep it goes, loves that he can brace himself and take what he wants. He flexes out of habit and need and Shiro bites back a groan.

“Look at me.” This time it's an order. Keith blinks the sweat from his eyes and tries to obey, but can't. The angle is bad and he knows there are stripes growing over his shoulders and over his spine. It’s too late to hide them, but he can’t face them. He can’t deal with the memory of himself like this in Shiro’s head.

His spine is bent in an arc now and Shiro’s grip is hard as steel. It _is_ steel. This position frees his other hand and he uses it to pry Keith's hand away from his mouth. He's been drooling—he can feel it running over his fingers, down his hand.

“Don't—don't, please—” he pants and whatever he's asking for is lost to him.

Shiro's eyes are black and close and wide. He starts moving, rising his hips to meet Keith’s, and Keith follows the motion. It’s muscle memory. “You’re beautiful,” he swears and pulls Keith up and back until his head is resting against Shiro’s shoulder. It's another habit, another familiar ease between them, but he keeps the hand fisted in Keith's hair. It hurts. The ache in him burns down to his toes where they're splayed against the sheets.

On any other night, he would use the leverage to slide against Shiro, bring him down in his own way, but it's not in him. The fight’s gone out like a quenched flame, leaving a haze of need that obscures everything but Shiro’s body against his.

His movements are out of cadence; when Keith pushes his face up and angles it, Shiro meets his lips and loses the rhythm all together.

Keith forgets why he was holding himself back. The kiss is messy and not deep enough. Keith bites at Shiro’s mouth and feels their teeth click, tastes blood, wants more. Shiro pulls him back by the hair before he can take it, but stays close. His breath smells like copper. The hand on his hip digs into the bone there. It’ll bruise. He hopes it will. He can’t think can’t breathe, but there’s a numbness starting to radiate out from all the places their connected.

He loses track of time and himself. Eventually, he closes his eyes, too focused on the slide and the sounds Shiro makes and the way Shiro knows him well enough to hit the right spot every other thrust. When he starts to lose it, Keith knows he’s close and the only thing keeping him from touching himself is Shiro’s low growl in his ear the first time he tries and then the grip Keith has on the sheets. They’ll be torn. They’ll be ruined, but he can’t bring himself to care. He digs his fingers in deeper, harder, trying to hurt something because he can’t hurt himself and he can’t hurt Shiro and he can barely breathe.

Shiro groans and presses words to the crown of Keith’s head, thrusts stuttering. He can’t understand them—they’re too muffled and he’s too far gone—but it gets through to the part of him that matters, the part of him in charge of his mind and body now, and he tries to make the sound rumbling up his throat something other than the soft, senseless thing it wants to be.

It doesn’t work. Shiro slips his hand from Keith’s hair, trusting he’ll hold the arch on instinct, and curls his fingers around Keith’s neck to feel the sound working its way up his throat.

He groans and curses lowly as he comes. Keith can feel the pulse inside him, raw and sweet. He tries to rise on his knees, fall, grind back against it, and is rewarded with a little cry Shiro doesn’t mean to make. Shiro pushes his face into Keith’s shoulder and presses a kiss there as he pulls his hand from Keith’s hip and finally takes him in hand.

It feels like relief, like release, just to be touched. Keith bites his own lip as his hips judder forward into Shiro’s hand; it only takes a breath before he comes so hard he whites out on the rise. Shiro works him through it, to the edge of too much. Keith feels like a marionette, strung up and strung out and no longer in control of his own limbs as he writhes. He pushes his face against whatever part of Shiro he can reach and breathes and breathes.

Shiro pulls out of him without warning and releases the death grip on his hair. It’s the only thing hold him up. He falls back to the bed and only has a moment to revel in the way the sheets feel against his skin before Shiro works a hand under his shoulder and pushes him on his back. His hair falls across his face and around his head and the rest of him—the bandages and bruises and mess on his stomach and between his legs… He can’t imagine what it is Shiro sees when he looks down. Gentle fingers push the hair off his brow and cheeks and then Shiro sits back and stares down.

The sting of his lips tells him the fangs are still prominent. There’s red at the corner of Shiro’s mouth to match. He’s breathing hard, too, still, and Keith realizes he wasn’t the only one keyed up for this. There’s hunger in his eyes. It’s not a one-time kind of night. Keith isn’t sure he has the energy for more, but he knows that look on his face. It makes him smile.

“I love you,” Shiro says, matter-of-fact.

This time, Keith believes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the record, this was titled "shiro is a furry" in my wip file  
> [[fic on tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/178126593925/please-i-just-want-more-keith-with-fangs-and)] [[fic on twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir/status/1041128187445440512)]


	26. bom!keith and veterinarian!shiro (humor + fluff)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 26\. bom!keith and veterinarian!shiro
>
>> Space wolf. Shiro wants to laugh, but that's rude, so he hides his face in his hand and hopes he looks pensive. “Does he have a name?"
>> 
>> The man folds his arms tighter and says with all seriousness, “He'll tell me when he's ready.”  
> 

“He's sick.”

In his line of work, Shiro sees all kinds. A universe has a lot to offer in the way of variety in both owners and pets. He's still not over the time someone tried to bring in a perfectly healthy Olkarian for a checkup. In retrospect, he could have expected it at some point. The man in front of him looks human even if he's dressed like a black ops operative, but the dog with him is like nothing Shiro's ever seen.

He’s the size of a small horse. He has a mane like one too, all electric blue and black, and he's glowing. His yellow eyes are almost as striking as his owner's blue.

Shiro lays a hand on the dog's neck and crouches to look into his eyes, ruffling the fur at the back of his neck. It follows him with eyes that are a little too intent. “Sick?”

“He won't eat.”

The man can't be over thirty—if he's human. Probably not. He watches Shiro as Shiro feels his way over the dog's back and then his belly, pressing to feel for anything amiss. It's hard when half of the patients you see are entirely new or hybridized versions of something he might have seen before, but he has good intuition and the dog's eyes are clear and bright.

When he's done, Shiro pets the dog’s face and itches behind his ears and gets a lick at his hand for his trouble. It's rare to get something petable in his office at all and he prefers cats, but it turns out in the wide universe of strange creatures, dogs are more similar to cats than most of what he gets. “I can't feel anything wrong.” Shiro looks up. The man has his arms folded and for all that he's scarred and dressed to kill, he looks nervous. “What does he eat?”

The man shifts in place. “Meat?” His nose scrunches just a bit. “Usually I just feed him whatever I'm eating.”

“It must be working for him.” For both of them. Skin-tight black doesn't usually do it for Shiro, but with muscle like that underneath it... Shiro shakes himself and clears his throat. “He’s a healthy, uh... Ah…”

“Space wolf,” the man offers, wincing. “I didn't come up with it.”

Space wolf. Shiro wants to laugh, but that's rude, so he hides his face in his hand and hopes he looks pensive. “Does he have a name?”

The man folds his arms tighter and says with all seriousness, “He'll tell me when he's ready.”

Shiro turns his giggle into a cough, tries to beat back his grin—and mostly fails. This kid is a trip. It's a question he must have been asked before and answered the same way. Shiro wonders how many years he's been waiting for that name. “Okay… I get that. Makes sense. Do you have a name?”

“Oh…” The boy unfolds his arms and holds out a hand. Shiro takes it with his prosthetic and is pleasantly surprised when the kid shakes it without staring. “Keith,” he offers. “Sorry. I should have introduced myself to start with.”

It's the tone of someone who's trained himself to apologize for little things and Shiro doesn't know how to tell him without being weird about it that this is already his best appointment in weeks for a multitude of reasons. Instead, he reaches out and pets the wolf’s ears again. “I can't find anything wrong with him. How did this start?”

The wolf watches Shiro take a seat as Shiro motions for Keith to do the same. He reaches in his pocket and holds out a little nibble of a treat for the wolf to take and he does, daintily. Not a lack of appetite, then.

Keith watches, brow wrinkled. “We moved back home to help out a couple weeks ago and… I don't know.” Keith reaches out to scratch under the wolf’s chin and when he speaks again, his voice is tense. “He just won't eat.”

Shiro leans forward. “Sometimes a change can be hard. On both of you.”

“You think he's homesick?” Keith meets his eyes for a moment before he looks down. “We usually live on the road. Maybe… I thought having everyone there would distract him.”

“Everyone?”

Keith nods and then pauses as if considering before he reaches into a pocket that Shiro thought was painted on his pants for show and pulls out an orange pane of glass. It’s familiar. That’s the kind of datapad they use on Earth. A thrill skips through Shiro’s gut; it’s been so long since he saw anyone from home. He flips it on and scrolls through images that project in midair until he settles on one.

“This is my family.”

Shiro looks at the photo and then at Keith and back to the photo. “You’re Galra.”

The photo features Keith and his nameless wolf front and center and a woman who’s unmistakably Galra beside them. Keith is a carbon copy of her. The rest of the photo registers in pieces because that’s—a lot of Galra. And if Keith looks lethal, he’s nothing in comparison to the gallery of faces and masks behind him. Shiro leans closer and tries to count their scars but then has to make a separate list for lost eyes and—well.

The image flickers and fades and he’s left staring at Keith from a foot away. He’s smiling. “They’re cool, I guess.”

Shiro pulls himself back from the brink and the hue of Keith’s eyes. “That’s—a lot of Galra. People. You all live together?”

Keith nods. “At headquarters. Everyone loves him, don’t they?” The wolf's tail thumps on the floor in agreement. His tongue hangs out the corner of his mouth and out of the corner of his eye, Shiro can see a slide of drool gathering at the hinge of his jaw. He’s not missing meals, that’s for sure. Which leaves one option.

“Is there a chance you're not the only one feeding him?”

Keith freezes, eyes going wide, and then shakes his head. “No, no one else would do that.” The wolf’s tail wags faster. He shoots a look at Shiro and then a look at Keith as Keith asks, “Right boy? You wouldn’t take snacks from people. Right?”

There’s an edge to Keith’s voice. The wolf slowly glances at the wall as if he’s only just noticed it and there’s a real likelihood a space rabbit is going to jump out of it at any moment.

“Oh my god,” Keith whispers. “ _Kosmo._ ”

The wolf looks at the wall harder.

“Kosmo?” Shiro asks, not wanting to interrupt, but scared he’ll start laughing if he doesn’t distract himself.

Keith buries his face in one hand. “That’s what they call him. I can’t believe he’s done this.” He looks genuinely heartbroken over it, or at least disappointed in a way Shiro doesn’t want to see.

It’s only half a lie when Shiro says, “Dogs—wolves— _space_ wolves, which are like dogs, I hope—they’re pack animals.” He’s pulling every word out of his ass and prays it doesn’t show. “This is probably his way of bonding with a new pack,” he offers.

Keith looks up at him. Shiro didn’t realize he was standing so close and he has to mentally beat himself back because his hand was edging toward Keith’s shoulder and that’s not appropriate. “It’s just an adjustment period for him.”

“You think so?”

Shiro doesn’t, but hope is beautiful on Keith, so he nods and says, “Mhmm. Yeah.” Keith doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t look depressed anymore either. Shiro has a quick mental debate with himself and then decides to go the distance. He has nothing to lose.

He pulls out his card and offers it to Keith, a humble supplicant. “You can call me if anything else comes up.”

Keith takes it. “Thank you.” He seems to think Shiro would be doing him a favor and not the reverse. His voice has a roughness to it, like it would break if he tried to yell, and Shiro is—

Shiro is _ruined_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[fic on tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/post/178869892585/for-the-flash-fic-shiro-is-a-space-vet-and-keith)] [[fic on twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir/status/1049454632655699968)]
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! Hopefully I'll be posting a lot more this week <3


	27. keith gets a ponytail (fluff + humor)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 27\. keith gets a ponytail. it's... super effective.
>
>> “No. His face is too—you know.” Shiro motions to his his face, making a point between his fingers and thumb. His own chin has always been more square than whatever Keith’s is. Beautiful, probably. There’s not really a better word for it.
>> 
>> Hunk squints at him. “He looks like a piece of fruit.”

Keith starts wearing his hair in a ponytail. It wouldn’t be bad necessarily, but the style of ponytail is new to all of them. Or—it’s new to Shiro, at least. It might be familiar to the rest of them. The first time Keith walks in wearing it, Lance sees and has to physically close his eyes and turn away as if the sight is a tragedy.

“I can’t believe he’s done this,” Lance says softly, uncharacteristically quiet in his criticism. Even Pidge and Allura look vaguely haunted. If Keith notices, he doesn’t show it. He glances around and shoves the rest of the granola bar in his mouth in one admirable bite before he walks out.

On Earth, hair ties are easily obtainable, it turns out. Maybe they’re lucky he only used the one. It’s red and the way he’s tied it suggests he turned his head upside down, gathered up as much hair as he could, and tied it off there. He is, perhaps, the only human on Earth that could pull it off. His attitude is some perfect blend of confident and ridiculous; it’s not a surprise he’s chosen to look this way, and it doesn’t seem like a mistake, but even if it is, no one wants to be the first person to mention it.

“He looks like an apple,” Shiro hears Hunk mutter it in the hallway when they get out of a meeting. Keith doesn’t though—not really. Maybe a peach or a pepper. His face is too pointed.

“No. His face is too—you know.” Shiro motions to his his face, making a point between his fingers and thumb. His own chin has always been more square than whatever Keith’s is. Beautiful, probably. There’s not really a better word for it.

Hunk squints at him. “He looks like a piece of fruit.”

“He doesn’t,” Shiro says a little too defensively. “I mean, he keeps his hair out of his face. He’s got a nice, you know—” he nods upward, “—forehead. Eyes. He looks good.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off the pile of papers he’s been absently sorting through. They always give him papers, stacks and stacks of them. In space, at least they didn’t have to deal with paper. Constant near-death incidents, existential terror—real death, even, but no papers.

He hasn’t made his point with adequate clarity, he realizes when Hunk doesn’t respond. He shakes his head and scratches at his forehead as he stares down at the stack Shiro is absently fiddling with. He doesn’t look at Shiro. “You know—there’s a saying. You can always tell it’s bad if they get a haircut and you still like them.”

“You can tell if what’s bad?” Shiro asks. Hunk shakes his head again and stands, making to walk out. Shiro watches him go and considers it before he decides he has nothing to lose and yells after him, “If what’s bad?”

Hunk doesn’t answer.

What’s admirably brazen at a distance is, it turns out, much more difficult to contend with in close quarters. Keith keeps his hair up in the ponytail all that day and by dinner it’s becoming hard to look anywhere else. The little short hairs on his bangs still fall over his forehead, but his big eyes are exposed to full effect this way.

“You, uh. You changed your hair,” Shiro says, motioning at it with his fork.

Keith glances up and then shrugs. “Yeah. It was getting long.”

“I could cut it for you,” Shiro offers, trying not to sound too eager. He’s only got the one hand, but it’s enough to wield a pair of scissors. They can make this work.

“I think it’s fine.”

“We can do it tonight,” Shiro insists. The issue really isn’t the ponytail or anyone’s reaction to it. The issue isn’t that Keith can’t fit his helmet over it or that the apple jokes are getting a little out of hand. It’s that Shiro can’t stop thinking about pushing the rest of his hair off his forehead, or about what he’d look like with his hair just an inch longer and tied off lower, or about how blue Keith’s eyes are when he’s not looking through at the world through a forest of dark hair.

Shiro takes a breath and forces his attention back to his plate.

“You really don’t mind?” Keith asks, staring up at him through the few stray hairs that have escaped to fall over his high cheekbones. Shiro nods, faintly.

 

* * *

 

Helping Keith cut his hair is fine in theory. In practice, it involves a significant amount of alcohol and his hands on Keith’s face and neck. His hair is twice is soft as he imagined it. Maybe it’s a Galra thing. Shiro tries to make small talk while he drapes a towel around Keith’s shoulders, moving on autopilot. He’s never cut hair in his life, but he’s had his hair cut and it’s nearly the same thing.

It starts to seem like a really good idea three beers into the evening and then it’s nothing to grab a pair of kitchen shears and a towel and make this happen. It can’t be that hard.

Less is more. He knows that much.

“Maybe we should get it wet first,” he says out loud, heat buzzing in his veins. Just the alcohol, that’s all.

Keith turns, glances up at him through his bangs. “Oh. Does that help?”

Shiro has no idea. Keith walks to the sink—because they decided the best ground zero for this possible disaster was Shiro's own kitchenette—and dips his head under the faucet without giving any warning. He’s had more to drink that Shiro, but Galra biology is impossible to beat. Every piece of the situation is awkward, but it shouldn't be. Just a guy, cutting another guy’s hair. A friend’s hair. Some men pay for the privilege. It's normal, regular, completely without implication, and then Keith raises his head and there's water running down his bangs and face.

A strategic error on Shiro's part. He won't be so foolish again.

He’s attractive. He’s _been_ attractive. Shiro would be blind and deaf not to notice the new muscle, the way he moves, the hair, the scar--he’s the envy of the Garrison. Shiro remembers what that was like, but Keith doesn’t seem to notice. He takes his seat again and Shiro can't delay the inevitable—his hands on Keith's wet hair. At the first touch he closes his eyes and grounds himself. It's silky. It shouldn't be. He doesn't even use conditioner. Shiro uses conditioner and product and goes to a trained professional for this sort of thing.

The bigger reason Shiro didn’t recommend Keith do the same is that the thought of this head, this hair, in the hands of a stranger is intolerable. They won’t have to stare at it every day for the next six months--or however long it takes to grow back. Hopefully less time than that.

“Shiro?”

He realizes he’s been standing there with his hand on Keith’s head, pushing his bangs over his face for the past minute. “Sorry,” Shiro mutters and picks up the scissors instead.

They’re sharpened, oiled, tightened. Keith is ready. The scissors are ready. There’s no reason not to start. _You can always take off more, but you can’t take off less,_ he tells himself, and pulls at the hair on the nape of Keith’s neck. When they were younger, when Keith first came to the Garrison, he thought it had a hue to it, like it was purple in the right light. Knowing his heritage now, it’s not unlikely. Shiro lines up the blades, tries to still his shaking fingers, and cuts.

It’s barely a millimeter off the edge of the longest strands. He has to squint to see the cut hair against his fingers. Still, it feels like too much. He repeats the cut on the other side and then, buoyed by the extra millimeter of Keith's pale neck that's now visible, takes off two more. “How does that look?” he asks, taking a half step back.

Keith turns his face back and forth for the stainless steel pan that's serving as a mirror. It's late so the only light is artificial and blue tinted. It's too clinical. If he suggests putting it off until morning and doing it outside, Keith might agree.

“...I can't tell the difference,” he mutters after a moment.

“You want more off?” he asks and then amends, “If you let it grow out more you'll be able to tie it back.”

“I've been tying it back.”

Shiro chokes on nothing, hazed vision of Keith's strange ponytail playing before his eyes. Keith glances back at him and quirks an eyebrow. “Just cut it. I don't care how much you take off.”

He might not, but Shiro does. If he let it grow out, how long would it get? Would the tips go red and violet like his mother's? Or maybe he'll braid it. Shiro could even braid it for him, one buddy braiding another buddy's hair, the same way Keith helped him dress and undress after he lost his arm.

It only got awkward at night when they had to share a bunk. In front of Coran and Krolia. There was nothing inherently strange about it, but Keith did the to octopus and Shiro's only saving grace was that he had only one hand to worry about extricating from under the back of Keith's shirt in the morning.

That is, when he slept with a shirt on at all.

Shiro turns to the sink to clean the scissors. “So, more?”

“What are you—yeah. Sure.”

_More._

His ears are red. On the next cut, Shiro tries to be more ambitious, more assertive, more, and that's where it starts to fall apart because his fingers are shaking and when he reaches out with the prosthetic hand to steady himself on Keith's shoulder. Keith jumps, Shiro goes with him, the scissors close, and in the aftermath he's left staring at one perfect lock of hair where it rests on the floor before him.

“Oh no.”

“ _Oh no_ what?” Keith turns his head and before Shiro can stop it, the motion closes the scissors completely, cutting off a little more.

“Oops.”

Keith catches the movement of the scissors out of the corner of his eye. His eyes dart to the floor. “Oh.” His eyes are a little unfocused--god, he is drunk, but not as far gone as Shiro and in the morning he’s going to look in the mirror and kill Shiro.

“Just--just sit down. I’ll even it up.”

He doesn’t even it up. One cut to make the other side match turns into two, because he goes too far, and then it looks like a rat tail and as good as Krolia looks, Shiro can’t deal with it. He pulls back only because he can’t cut more without causing a full crisis. Keith grabs for the mirror when he steps back and Shiro uses the prosthetic arm’s reach to grab it away.

Keith glares. “Give me the mirror.” He’s never used that tone on Shiro.

“No, just--ok, let me—” Shiro tries to pile it artfully, brush it around a little with his hands, but it’s starting to dry and it’s worse than he thought. “I think it’s fine.”

“Then give me the mirror.”

Shiro hands it to him, reluctantly. Keith turns his head back and forth and cocks it before he puts it down and then turns to level a look at Shiro that doesn’t condemn or hate, but asks only, _why?_ “It’s a bowl cut.”

“No! No, it’s not. How do you even know what that is? It’s--it’s not. It looks good.”

Keith sniffs and presses his lips together. “It doesn’t.”

Shiro kneels down in front of him, puts a hand on his knee, and tries to look him the eyes. It’s a bowl cut. He’s right. “It looks good,” Shiro lies, feeling either on the verge of hysterical laughter or tears. “Keith it looks great.”

“Really?” He bites his lip and tries to tuck his bangs behind his ear. He can’t do it. It’s just a big too short. It falls as one, a curtain of rounded terror against his neck.

This is a moment. There are no lies between them. No secrets, no lack of trust. Shiro presses his face to Keith’s knee, where his hand is still resting, and then looks up at him and tries to let the love come through his eyes. “No,” he says. “Keith, I’m so sorry. It looks _horrible._ ”

Keith nods. “Maybe I can get it done like yours.”

Shiro nods with him, but his eyes are stuck on the scar and the edge of hair that’s tracing it and the hair is objectively horrible, but Keith still looks good, somehow. Hunk’s words come back him like an omen.

_That’s how you know it’s bad._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going through and adding vague content tags to each chapter to make this easier to navigate (fyi, if you see changes). Thanks for reading, as always!! You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir) and [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/)!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Razzle Dazzle Let's Bedazzle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12185157) by [prettyshiroic (kcgane)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kcgane/pseuds/prettyshiroic)
  * [sheith shared dog tags (2) by arahir [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13171161) by [Rhea314 (Rhea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Rhea314)
  * [shiro's arm betrays him by arahir [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15840336) by [Rhea314 (Rhea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Rhea314)




End file.
